Temporality
by fangirlwithak
Summary: In order to prevent the destruction of the wizarding world, Hermione Granger goes back in time to work behind the scenes. However, she underestimates two very important factors: refashioning her life in a completely different reality... and Sirius Black.
1. Part One: The Present

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all its affiliates belong to JK Rowling, Scholastic, and WB. Additionally, the references to Andromache come from Racine's play, _Andromache_, and the line "Do As Thou Shalt" comes from Francois Rabelais's _The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel._ I'm not making any money off of this story. All of my runic information can be found here: wwwdotemmaempiredotnet/archives/cmsdotendottextbooks_runesdothtml (and of course, replace "dot" with a period). Finally: While the Order of the Phoenix movie pictures Sirius's Animagus form as an Irish Wolfhound, I took some liberties and made it a Belgian sheep dog.

This story was written as part of the Hermione Big Bang on LiveJournal. My sincerest thanks go to the hardworking Hermionemods, my fellow Bangers and their support on the Bangers LJ community, my lovely artists, Pennswoods and Selene2 for being so incredibly talented where I fail, and most of all, to my beta, lilmisblack, who suffered through the rough draft with astounding patience and brilliance. The accompanying artwork can be followed back through this link: (again, replacing "dot" with the appropriate punctuation) hermionedotmagical-worldsdotus/viewstorydotphp?sid=22&index=1

PART ONE: The Present

_1. An interlude in Hogsmeade_

It had started out as a nasty day that wore well on into a nasty afternoon. Now entering an equally horrendous evening, the darkness had come early for summertime. The candles in Hogsmeade had been charmed to light, and stay lit, in the mid-afternoon. They served as a beacon for those foolish enough to force their way through the torrential rain and muddy, wet streets of the wizarding town. The rain itself brought with it a hint of the fall to come, the chilly breeze adding insult to injury.

A hooded figure in a corner of the Hog's Head pub watched the one or two regulars forcing their way through the front door to drip and track mud through the room. Knowing Aberforth, the mud would dry to dirt, get shifted around a bit with a broom, and eventually be forced into a corner somewhere and forgotten. The Hog's Head would be remembered for its characters, not for its cleanliness.

The door to the pub slammed open and a dripping, cloaked individual stumbled in from the sideways downpour. It paused to gaze around the bar as if looking for somebody, before hesitantly making its way to a dark corner where the original hooded person sat. With a glance to the rest of the clientele, people familiar with how the Hog's Head worked and, therefore, not paying attention beyond their own drinks, the newer figure pulled out a chair and hurriedly sat down.

"Is that you?" it asked in a feminine voice, still dripping water onto the floor.

The first made a hurried glance around and pulled out a wand. The faint shimmer of a magical barrier was the only hint that a spell had been cast and that, too, disappeared quickly. After a moment's hesitation, the first pointed the wand at the dripping woman and the water was siphoned off her cloak. "If it weren't me, you certainly would have gotten my attention from your introduction. It's safe to talk now, by the way," she muttered, lowering the wand and shaking off her hood.

Hermione Granger blinked a few times to allow her eyes to adjust to the new addition of light. "I've been sitting here for over half the afternoon. I didn't want to garner any attention I didn't need; it's bad enough being Harry Potter's ex-best friend, but anybody out in this weather's bound to get a few odd looks."

The second figure followed suit and lowered her hood as well. Hermione cringed for a moment before schooling her features into a naturally calm look. Padma grinned back ruefully. "I'm sorry. I sometimes forget that you there when they found her. Or, at least, what there was left to find," Padma admitted.

Hermione shrugged, looking off to the side. "Rationally, I know you aren't her, but I spent six years sharing a dorm with Parvati and I can't help it. It's uncomfortable enough seeing Lavender, who was just a friend, let alone her twin."

"I understand. Whenever you see either of us, it's a reminder of what Greyback did to her. It's been two years since the Final Battle but I still have nightmares, too, you know," Padma replied. Hermione looked back up from where she'd been staring fixedly at a knot in the table's surface and noted that Padma's face was not unkind.

"I think we all have nightmares," Hermione affirmed with a haunted tone and meeting her counterpart's eyes. "We'll always have nightmares, but it doesn't have to end that way." She shifted nervously in her chair before fixing Padma with an excited look. "Do you have it with you?" Hermione asked, bringing the conversation back into focus and not bothering to mask her eagerness.

Padma jumped at the excitement in Hermione's voice but quickly recovered. She reached into a pocket of her cloak and procured a vial and a rumpled piece of parchment. "Yes, I have it with me. It took me two months of refinery—even after the time you spent on it yourself—and almost destroyed half my flat. If I hadn't set up precautionary shields beforehand, I would have lost everything." She plunked the vial on the top of the table where it caught what little light there was in the bar and gave off an eerie, green shadow.

Hermione eagerly reached for the parchment, ripping it out of Padma's hand. Her eyes skimmed the document critically and Padma became edgy, nervously drumming her fingers against the tabletop. "I did what I could," she said, interrupting the silence. After a pregnant moment, Hermione looked up from the sheet of parchment to give Padma her full attention. "I couldn't work past the Boomslang skin, though. That's what almost took out my flat. If I had more time, at least six months, I might be able to find an alternative to replace it, one that's easier to obtain, but you told me you needed the potion right away."

Hermione sighed, folding up the document and sliding it into her own cloak. "I'll probably be able to work through getting more skin from where I'll be. And I wish I had the extra time to give you, but the longer I wait to act, the easier it'll be for somebody to put the pieces together. Kingsley's almost figured it out but I think he agrees with what I'm going to do." She paused for a moment and made a mental cross out. "No, not 'agree,' per se, but he won't try to stop me. He understands why I have to go through with this and I think it's understood that any different outcome couldn't be too much worse. I sometimes wonder if so many people would have died had You-Know-Who won the war. Would we be living in a world this bad?"

Padma's brows furrowed and she shot Hermione a look that the brunette couldn't translate. "There's a reason I was put into Ravenclaw," she began. "We're smart, and we like to work out the puzzles. I know you didn't ask for help on the potion because you wanted easy hair management, especially not hair exceedingly similar to Andromeda Tonks's, as per your request. Just like I know there was no possible way you could have attended two classes at once our third year at Hogwarts. If the two happen to correlate, you need to be extremely careful. Time paradoxes can be very dangerous, Hermione. Even you aren't smart enough to predict the future." She finished this with a slight grin. "As I recall, you don't even believe in divination."

Hermione huffed and reached out for the potion, trying to change the topic. "What do I need to know about this?" she asked, twirling the green vial between her fingers. She'd had her own doubts regarding her planned course of action; she did not need Padma adding to them.

"Pour a few drops into your shampoo. The more you pour, the darker your hair will become, until about the fifth drop, which will leave your hair black. It needs to be used every twenty-four hours, though, because your hair has a life of its own." Padma paused and thought for a second. "After twenty-four hours, the dye may begin to run from your hair with any moisture, and the curls will start to frizz out. As for your other 'beauty enhancements,' you already know the charms to alter your skin pigment, don't you?" Hermione nodded back at her. "And unfortunately, I couldn't work out anything that would alter your eyes but wouldn't end with a badly placed _'Finite Incantatem.'_ You gave me two months to adjust something that could take years to perfect."

Hermione shrugged. "If I had another two years to play with it, believe me, I would've let you change and alter as much as I could. But again, time is of the essence." _'Mostly because I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to keep the resolve to go through with this,'_ she added silently to herself. "How long does the potion take to brew?"

This time, Padma's resulting, dazzling smile reminded Hermione why the Patil sisters had been considered two of the most beautiful girls in their year. "That was one thing I did perfect and I'm quite happy with the outcome," Padma told her. "Normally, the Polyjuice Potion takes a moon cycle to brew, but this potion isn't a Polyjuice. You didn't want to be somebody else in particular; you just wanted to be anybody else. I was able to cut brewing time down to a week. In fact, if you need to speed up the process, you can brew the potion in two days, but the effects won't be as great. Your hair won't curl as much, or the sun might give it a reddish sheen. Unless somebody is looking very hard, they won't notice too much of a difference, just that you haven't had the time to care for your self-image or something."

Hermione returned Padma's grin warily. "You did an excellent job on the potion, then. I'm horrendous with anything beauty-image related; years of focusing on more important things finally caught up with me, I guess. And I did not want to end up as a cat again." She paused, pondering a new question. "So, with black ringlets, blue eyes, and pale skin, do you think you'd recognize me?" she asked innocently.

Padma shot a sidelong look at her. "I don't know what you're going to do to change your eye colour, but with a few alterations and different, memorable hair, you'll find that people won't even consider equating Hermione Granger with this other individual. I doubt even your own mother would recognize you."

This time, Hermione visibly flinched at Padma's words. It took a second for the other girl to realize what she'd said, but upon reflection of Hermione's expression, Padma gasped in horror. "That was in really bad taste. I'd… I'd forgotten," she stammered. "They reported it in the Prophet a few months ago. I'm so, so sorry, Hermione."

Hermione was silent for several moments, trying to block out the day that the Ministry owl returned her parents' wedding bands to her. "I can take care of my eyes through Muggle methods," Hermione pointedly stated, ignoring the awkward tension in the air. "Push comes to shove, I will transfigure them. It'll be more troublesome by far, but it'll be worth it." They both pretended that the faint bit of water gathering at the corner of Hermione's eyes was from the amount of dust in the bar.

"I…" Padma trailed off, lost for words. A moment of understood silence passed through them; both girls had alluded to deceased family members, casualties of the war that rocked the wizarding world, and both understood the other's pain.

Hermione was the first to speak up again. "I need to be leaving," she stated, clearing her throat and wiping any trace of water from her face. "Andromeda has been excellent to me, but she'll be wanting a break. It's not easy taking care of Teddy and Ron at the same time." She stood up and made to leave.

Padma took this as a cue and stood up as well. "How is Ron doing these days?" she asked tentatively.

Hermione paused for a moment. "He's doing… well. We've been relearning a few basic things, like using a fork, but I think it might be a bit too much for him. He keeps getting frustrated with the hand-eye coordination," she replied. Pulling up her hood again, she motioned for Padma to do the same.

With a whisk of her wand, the privacy shields around the table fell and both girls were assaulted by the clinks and mutterings around the bar. Hermione dropped a few sickles onto the table to thank Aberforth for the privacy and headed to the door, Padma trailing behind. Taking a moment of mental bracing, Hermione flung open the door to once again face the weather when a hand on her arm stopped her. She turned back to face a reluctant Padma. "I just want to tell you… good luck," the other girl said. "Whatever happens, we'll understand that you did what you could. And if you can't do it, then it's just impossible to achieve."

Hermione smiled wryly before remembering that the other girl could not see it from underneath her cloak's hood. "Nothing's impossible, not with the right amount of determination. There was a reason they put me in Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw; I'm excruciatingly stubborn when it comes to achievement." With that, she bid her leave from Padma and took off into the pouring rain, slipping and sliding in the dark and the mud until she reached the Apparation point. There was a slight "Pop," and then she was gone.

_2. An interlude in history_

"Phineas Nigellus Black."

"Married Ursula Flint. They had five children: Sirius, Phineas, Cygnus, Belvina, and Arcturus. Phineas was later disowned for supporting Muggle rights."

"Cygnus Black."

"Married Violette Bulstrode and had four children: Pollux, Cassiopeia, Marius, and Dorea. Marius was disowned for being a Squib."

"Marius, then…"

"Went to live with his Great-Aunt Isla, who had been disowned two generations before for marrying a Muggle. In his mid-twenties, he was introduced to Ariadne Gamp, another cast-off Squib, and they had two children: Isla and Robert. Both were born without magic, which really goes to show a few things about inter-generational breeding if you ask me."

"Hermione. Please spare me the lecture."

"But Ariadne was practically his cousin! Marius's Uncle, Sirius, married Hesper Gamp, and Ariadne was her niece! I mean, it has nothing to do with you, Andromeda, but you would've thought that somebody along the way would stop to think that inbreeding might be one of the reasons behind the increasing amount of Squib-births. In fact, I once considered doing a research project on it over the summer. Mr. Weasley convinced me that it probably wasn't the best idea, though. He said that pure-blood fanatics like the Malfoys hated me already, so I didn't need to add fuel to the fire when there were other things for me to focus my attention on."

"Isla and Robert Black, Hermione." The wariness in Andromeda Tonks's shone through at this comment. It was the voice of a mentor whose over-enthusiastic student would drive any other man to drink. Having lived and tutored Hermione for over two years now, though, she was familiar with Hermione's personality and knew how to bring a conversation back into focus.

"Yes, yes. Well, Isla ended up marrying a Muggle she met in university and they both became active members in UN peacekeeping actions. Robert Black, however, fell in love with a witch when visiting France. Geneviève, albeit having a family history that would have done any Black proud, was rumoured to have had a bit of veela in her, which, in retrospect, was probably the only reason she got away with marrying a Squib. When in doubt, blame 'animal attraction' and the rest of the family just nods in sympathy."

Hermione came to a temporary halt in the middle of her dialogue, stopping long enough to take a breath before continuing. "Anyway, Robert and Geneviève eventually settled in a southern French province after the war. She later came into a hefty inheritance, including a title and several million Galleons, which they later deposited into Gringotts for safekeeping. They were—stupidly, might I add; how utterly oblivious to the state of the world can one be?—visiting her distant relatives in Vietnam in 1965 when the United States initiated Operation Starlite. Robert and Geneviève never returned to France alive. Their considerable funds were left in the care of Isla the Younger's family, which was rather daft when you think about it."

She paused to scoff at the notion, giving Andromeda enough of a warning to brace herself for more of Hermione's personal commentary. "What's a Squib going to do with several million Galleons? And that's if Gringotts would hand the money over to a Muggle in the first place, which I highly doubt, mostly because that money would never see their bank again."

"Hermione, if I wanted your opinion on how ridiculous my family history is, I'd ask you to write a book on it. Would you please continue?"

"Fine. Well, Robert and Geneviève left behind no child that British records are aware of. However, because Robert and his wife settled in France, and because the British Ministry of Magic fails to recognize Squibs for magical registry, whether or not they actually had children is unknown. Well, except for me. I was able to find some sentimental members of Geneviève's family and speak to them."

Hermione gave her mentor a wicked grin, making the elder woman groan inwardly. "Then, I was also able to hunt down a member of Isla's family. They were raised as Muggles and were, eventually, the sole inheritors of Marius and Ariadne's fortune, as well as Robert and Genevieve's. Including bank notices from Gringotts, mentioning a large inheritance. They passed off the bank notice as an odd quirk of sentimental value and shoved it in a box in the attic."

Andromeda Black cast a wary eye on her friend and pupil. "Why do I have the feeling I'm not going to like where this story is heading?" she asked, fighting the urge to rub the bridge of her nose.

"Well, it does get a little fishy here, and I'm a little ashamed at it myself," Hermione admitted reluctantly. "But I need to tell you so I can get it off my chest. Back when I was completing research on your family, I must've spent ages digging through genealogy books in maybe ten different libraries in three different countries before I finally tracked down Isla's living family. I posed as a student writing a thesis on the innovations of the printing press through the 20th century and they let me buy the 'unique' document from them for £100."

Andromeda made a squeak from her chair and cast Hermione a disapproving glare. "I know, it sounds like I stole a bushel of money from the ignorant. But please understand that Gringotts would never, ever convert that entire bank account into pounds," Hermione added quickly, her guilt making the statement come out in a rush. "The goblins would find some way to wheedle out the money and the Muggles wouldn't be able to do a thing about it. I'll be surprised if they don't put up a fight about having to reopen the vault after only a few years, let alone forty."

"It still sounds like you conned an awful lot of money off of Muggles, Hermione," Androma reprimaned, gazing over to where Hermione sat in her favourite armchair opposite a polished coffee table in the sitting room. As usual, the younger girl sat tucked in a ball, legs folded up underneath her and arms folded across her chest. On the rare occasions when Hermione wasn't busy planning her future or taking care of the others who lived in the house, she could be found in that chair with a worn copy of _Hogwarts: A History_ levitating in the air in front of her. It was the designated Hermione-Spot.

Momentarily lost in thought, Andromeda's eyes swept from where Hermione curled up in her chair, to the rosy fire in the fireplace. It kept the oncoming fall chill at bay and provided a friendlier atmosphere for the underlying tension in the room. Her eyes moved to trail across the mantlepiece and she tried her best to ignore the happy family photos waving out to her. Hermione, Teddy, and to some extent, Ron, were all the family she had left now.

"If it makes you feel any better, the wills left the money to the 'next of kin.' Because the Muggles can't use the money, it'll technically get returned to the next of kin. It'll be deposited into the Black accounts when I leave. That £100 is the most the Muggles would ever get from the Gringotts notice," Hermione replied, starting to look a bit peevish. "I need some way to prove that I'm related to the Blacks. The goblins—and the Ministry—won't be able to do any sort of inheritance checks because of their own ignorance and ethnocentricism. My appearance alone isn't going to cut it, but an official, goblin-made notice that says I have rights to the vault, and no family members with a clue to contest it, will help a lot."

Hermione fiddled with the loose strands of an afghan that was thrown over the arm of her chair. Andromeda had not been happy with Hermione's plan from the start. One of the biggest rules about time travel was not to change things, and for multiple reasons. Time paradoxes, for one, were a pain. Then, there was always the risk of accidentally changing time for the worse. Hermione had not jumped into her plans immediately. Over two years had passed since You-Know-Who had been killed and nothing had changed. Many had died—too many—and the wizarding world was rapidly falling into a decline. Of the Order, only a handful had survived the war, mental condition withstanding.

Matters then worsened. Not enough people had lived through the years of war to build up the wizarding world to the height it had been before You-Know-Who's return. The mass purging of Muggleborns and half-bloods had all but ruined the wizarding world's economy. Then, the July following the end of the war, the Muggle economy was hit with a financial crisis that spread around the world. While society was able to survive, the financially unstable wizarding world in Britain, already in shambles, was put to test even further: Muggles had discovered the wizarding world. They found out that many of the previous years' 'natural disasters' were not-so-natural, and they'd become exceedingly upset. They were now angry and looking for retribution and blood. The wizarding world had become their scapegoat.

_Harry._

Harry would have been able to bring their society out of this hole. Hermione tucked her arms even closer into her body as she let the dismal thoughts carry her away from the conversation at hand. Harry Potter was The Boy Who'd Saved Them All. He had been willing to give up every aspect of his life since birth and the final sacrifice had been just that—final. Like Lily, he had voluntarily welcomed death to protect the ones he loved. Many of Hermione's nightmares were plagued by visions of Hagrid carrying the limp, bloody body back to Hogwarts, nightmares that woke her up with tears running down her face and unable to make a sound.

Many more had died in the battle that pursued. Neville had been able to stab Nagini with Gryffindor's sword, but found his end through Bellatrix Lestrange. Ginny, too, had been murdered by the woman before Bellatrix met Molly Weasley's wrath; both witches had ended up taking out the other. Hermione had watched in horror as, one by one, her friends fell. Then, in the aftermath, she had watched the wizarding world further rip itself apart. It was easier to count the living now instead of the dead.

And Ron. Sweet, lovable Ron. Jealous Ron, who ended up proving his Gryffindor worth by coming back, who proved his brilliance by opening up the Chamber of Secrets, and who finally listened to a damned word she'd ever said when he'd asked about the house elves that fateful night. Daft, stupid, idiotic Ron, who decided he'd be the one to avenge Harry's death by bringing on You-Know-Who's demise. Poor Ron, who, upon raising his wand to You-Know-Who, met his match in the Dark Lord. You-Know-Who was killed by the same love that had been his end sixteen years prior and Ron…

You-Know-Who was more clever than Snape when it came to inventing new and unique spells. For a man with only a small portion of his soul left, he definitely understood how the human psyche worked and used that for his advantage. You-Know-Who might have sneered upon the power of love, but he understood that others put great faith into the emotion. Killing a person would lead to a few months of grief before moving on. Ruining a person, but keeping him or her alive, though, could turn what would be several months of grief into an entire lifetime of bitter agony.

Hermione never found out exactly what curse You-Know-Who had used on Ron, but she figured that it was some sort of variant on the Confundus Charm. With the flick of a wand, Ron was rendered an invalid. Much like Neville's parents', his mind had been destroyed. Unlike them, though, he would have small moments of clarity and recognition before reverting back to simple-mindedness. He too had nightmares about the final battle, yet lacked the mental prowess to work through them like Hermione could.

Hermione would be leaving all this behind to fix things for the better.

Kingsley, Andromeda, and Padma weren't the only ones to guess at what Hermione was about to attempt. It had all started when, following the end of the war, an elderly lawyer stopped by for a quick visit. Much to her surprise, Hermione had found that that she'd been written into Professor McGonagall's will. The lawyer had handed Hermione an oak box the size of her fist and was on his way just as quickly as he had come. Inside the box, though, Hermione had found, written on a folded-up piece of parchment, the words "Do As Thou Shalt." Sitting on a pillow of crushed, purple velvet was the Time-Turner she had used her third year at Hogwarts.

For several minutes Hermione had sat there, holding the chain of the Turner in one hand and the note in the other. However, as soon as she'd gotten over her amazement, she'd begun to plan.

In the two years following the war, Hermione had had plenty of time to plot and experiment in order to use the artefact as she saw fit. The Department of Mysteries would have been quick to recruit her if they'd found out that it had only taken Hermione a year and a half to alter the Turner so she could use it to travel for more than just a few hours at a time. An addition of winding gears, much like the individual numbers mechanisms on simple Muggle padlocks, allowed Hermione to adjust time settings on the Turner to something a little more specific than, "Two turns, and I can be in Muggle Studies, right?" With a twist, a tap from her wand, and a muttered incantation, Hermione could travel back years.

More importantly, she could travel back far enough to break the biggest rule of time travel by altering the past. Hermione fully intended to make sure that You-Know-Who did not live long enough to see Halloween, 1981. If she had to break every rule in the book, she would, if only to guarantee the wizarding world's survival. Even the unknown couldn't be worse than the shadow of humanity wizarding Britain had become.

Now, Hermione had all the tools she needed to travel back to July of 1976 just before the initiation of the first war. With several documents Kingsley had been able to provide, the bank notice she'd gotten from Isla's family, the potions and spells Padma had provided, and Andromeda's knowledge, Hermione would be able to play the role of a missing Black heiress. She'd establish her presence amongst wizarding society long enough for rumours to spread before contacting "Aunt" Walburga about reconnecting with her family. Eventually, she would be in the thick of things, so to speak, in hopes that being visible on the forefront allowed her to be invisible from behind enemy lines. In playing the part of a perfect, pure-blood princess, she hoped that she would avoid detection from her enemies, thus performing her duties without inconvenient questions asked.

And she planned to start as soon as she could work up the courage to do so.

_3. An interlude in the bathroom_

Andromeda knocked on the bathroom door for the third time in five minutes. "Hermione?" she called through the white door as she jiggled the handle. "Fretting about how it looks isn't doing anything for my nerves. At least lower the wards and let me help you." She futilely banged against the door and attempted to tug on the handle again.

It was another minute or so before she finally got a response. "It doesn't feel right," said the muffled whine through the door.

"I should hope not," Andromeda replied dryly. "The thought that you might have curls that actually behave is alarming. Please lower the wards on my bathroom."

There was another few moments pause before Andromeda felt the electricity of the ward fizzle out and heard the click of the lock slip back. She quickly pushed the door open before Hermione had a chance to change her mind.

And froze.

Amidst a pile of crumpled toilet paper squares, a girl with red, puffy eyes sat cross-legged on the floor in Hermione's pyjamas and Hermione's bunny slippers… yet she wasn't quite Hermione. She had a similar build to the girl Andromeda knew, and certainly had the same facial features, but instead of the summer tan, wild, brown hair, and eyes of a matching colour, this girl looked as if she had fought a losing battle with raven ringlets that brought out the blue of her eyes and the paleness of her skin. The girl sniffled a couple of times and dragged the back of her hand across her cheeks.

"It's stupid. I just…" she sniffled again and blew her nose into another toilet paper square. Andromeda noted that she at least still sounded like Hermione. "I've worked the past two bloody years on this project. I've dedicated all my time to studying and researching and trying to come up with a way to make this all better. I was fine, and strong, and I knew I could do this, and not once did I cry over how tired I was or how hard the work seemed or how impossible the whole situation seemed to be." She took a pause. "Well, not _cry_-cry. But now, here I am, bawling over this stupid, perfect hair." She emphasized the last three words by angrily ripping at the curls on her head.

Most definitely Hermione, then. Andromeda mentally congratulated Padma on her potions brewing skills and made a note to visit the girl for her own reasons. She knelt down on the floor next to Hermione and gave her a hug. "The Blacks have a history of stupid, perfect hair," she told her, cradling Hermione in her arms. "You've seen those pictures of Sirius when he was younger. You know Narcissa is my sister. Even Dora had fantastic hair when it wasn't purple. To be a Black, you have to look the part. And right now, you look like an aristocratic Black heiress."

"I miss my brown nest," Hermione muttered, another tear slipping down her face. "I miss my brown nest and my brown eyes and—and anybody with skin this pale deserves skin cancer." She scrubbed at her cheeks, wiping off the tears and trying to control herself. "But Hermione Granger is known for her infamous hair and eyes, and the Blacks are infamous for having transparent skin, so matters can't be helped. And they say that people never remember the face behind the hair. If I don't have Hermione hair," she sniffled a bit at the thought, "then chances of being recognized as Hermione when I return are slim to none."

Andromeda wisely remained silent as Hermione worked through grieving mechanisms over her hair. After another few minutes of silently composing herself, Hermione abruptly stood and walked over to the sink. She splashed a bit of water on her face from the tap and forced herself to gaze back at the person in the mirror. "You, Andromache Black, do not scare me. You could very well end up being everything I despise about the elitist pure-bloods I've met in the past, but I won't let your stupid hair or your unseemly skin won't keep me from reaching my goal."

"You've decided on a name?" Andromeda asked.

Hermione nodded and faced the elder woman with an eerie blue gaze. "It seems appropriate, doesn't it? In the French play, Andromache is made the prisoner of war and is forced to choose between her past and her future while struggling with her morals. She's also Hermione's foil character; Andromache has the one thing that Hermione wants. I think it's appropriate to play the foil to Hermione in the past, don't you?"

Andromeda fixed Hermione's—Andromache's—eyes with a look of her own. "In Racine's play, Hermione's character ends up dying for the one thing that Andromache has, yet can't obtain herself," she warned.

Hermione was the first to look away. "I know," she muttered, gazing off into the hallway. "If it takes dying to make the play end, don't think I won't do it." She met Andromeda's eyes again, steeling up her Gryffindor courage. "There's nearly nothing I wouldn't do to keep my friends from dying."

"Those are some very strong words."

"I know. Just like I know I can live up to them. I've got to live up to them."

_4) An interlude in the night_

This time, it wasn't her own nightmares of the final battle that woke her up in the middle of the night, but the sobbing that came from the other side of the room. Hermione darted out of bed, vaulted over the random articles on the floor, and approached the other bed with trepidation. The covers were pulled over a shaking lump in the middle of the mattress, and Hermione's heart went out for the figure underneath.

"Ron. Ron, it's all right. You're safe, in your own bed, and I'm here for you, Hermione's here for you," she soothed. She perched on the edge of the mattress, careful not to make any sudden movements that might frighten him. "Can you come out from under there and talk to me? It's hard talking to a blanket," she coaxed.

There was some shuffling from under the comforter and two eyes peaked out from under the edge. "You aren't Hermione," he accused with confusion. His head darted back under the blankets.

"What?" she asked, incredulous. "Of course I'm Hermione. You've known me for ages now! Do you remember riding on the train together, and I was helping Neville look for his toad?"

"What's a toad?" came the muffled question.

She fought down her irritation. "It's like a frog, but different. Do you remember the frog we found out by the pond? You tried to catch it and got all muddy and thought it was funny when Andromeda got angry because you left footprints on her floor. Well, frogs are related to toads." _'I think,'_ she added to herself. She'd spent more of time her preparing the two species for potions than looking up their evolutional backgrounds.

"Oh," he responded. "I remember doing that, and I remember Hermione, too. You aren't her," came the muffled accusation. "You don't have Hermione's hair."

Her hands flew up to her hair and she groaned. Padma's potion was still creating a monstrosity on her head and, even after several hours of restless sleep, the curls were still nowhere near as bad as her normal bush was. She would have to try a different approach.

"That was just somebody playing a trick on me, Ron. It'll be gone by the time we wake up in the morning. I swear," she told him.

"Was it the twins?" he wanted to know. "They're always playing tricks on people."

"I…" she trailed. Ron's half-lucid moments were sometimes worse than the ones where he'd forgotten everything. Having to tell him, over and over, that his family was dead only reopened the wounds for her. It also brought back her nightmares, remembering how each individual died with all-too-keen detail. "No. Andromeda thought she'd play a trick on me. Anyway, would anybody but Hermione Granger know that you want to play Quidditch for the Cannons? Or that your favourite colour is maroon?" she asked.

"They might," he responded, slowly lowering the covers again. He leaned forward cautiously, their eyes meeting. Inside, a small part of Hermione bawled for the Ron she had loved and was murdered by You-Know-Who during the final battle.

She was surprised when he suddenly smiled. "You don't look like Hermione, but you're her on the inside, aren't you? Like you're playing pretend at being Andromeda." He melted into her embrace and Hermione desperately cradled his head to her chest.

"Do you want to talk about your dream?" she wanted to know while stroking his hair.

"I don't remember. I just remember being really scared. You were screaming and I couldn't get to you to make it stop. It just kept going and I couldn't do anything," he responded, muffled into her chest.

"I'm not screaming now. I'm fine and I'm here with you and we're both safe," she told him.

"I know."

They remained like this for several moments and Ron's breathing evened out. Hermione thought he might have fallen back asleep when he spoke up. "Mum's not going to like that you're in my room, Hermione."

His statement was akin to pouring a bucket of ice water down her back. Molly Weasley had been dead for two years now, something that Hermione mourned almost as much as she did her own parents' death. "Your mum…" she paused, trying to speak without breaking up, "She isn't here right now, Ron. Your mum's gone away and she left Andromeda and me to take care of you. I promised her that I'd watch over you always."

"My Mum's dead, isn't she?"

"I…"

Ron looked up at her with clear eyes. "That's okay, Hermione. You don't have to keep on pretending that everything's okay. I know it's not and I know it hurts you." Hermione fought to choke back a sob. Ron's moments of clear lucidity were the worst out of all of them.

"Harry. He's dead too." Hermione could only nod. "It's probably better that way. He'd blame himself for all of this, I just know it. A lot of people are dead, aren't they?"

Hermione nodded again, a tear slowly rolling down her cheek.

"What about your parents? Are they okay?"

"They…" Hermione's brain flitted back to a moment, several months ago.

She had been sitting at the breakfast table, helping Ron eat his oatmeal while Andromeda fussed over Teddy and a booster seat. There had been a tapping on the window that alerted her of the post's arrival and she stood up to retrieve it. Frankly, she considered it amazing that the Daily Prophet was able to continue, what with the wizarding world spread so thin. Sometimes, she reckoned, journalists like Rita Skeeter were harder to wipe out than cockroaches.

"Anything new? Or just more moaning and despair?" Andromeda had asked, fighting over a cup of yoghurt.

Hermione had barely heard the other woman over her utter amazement. 'Rioting Outside the Ministry of Magic Spreads Through London, Taking Wizards and Muggles Alike,' read the title. A picture on the front had shown a gaping crater, still smoking and full of rubble, where the Ministry had once stood.

"The Ministry has fallen," Hermione had whispered.

Before Andromeda could question her, a second owl had flown into the kitchen, this time brandishing a letter for Hermione to take.

She had skimmed through the letter, barely taking in the words as she stroked the slightly-melted gold loops that had fallen out of the envelope. _'Dear Ms. Granger… we regret… caught in the MoM riots… identified by their wedding bands… pass them on to you… sorry for your losses…'_

Hermione returned to the present, where she sat on Ron's bed and held on to him for dear life. "They're gone too, Ron. I think they'd be happier this way," Hermione responded distantly. "The Muggles… they know about the wizarding world now. They aren't happy that we've been hidden too long," she told him.

"I wish there was some way we could fix this," Ron sighed, snuggling up against her.

"There is some way to fix it. I'm working on it right now."

"That's okay, then. If Hermione wants to do it, it'll happen."

This was exactly the moment Hermione had been waiting for. Remembering what You-Know-Who had done to her world, mentally reliving the travesties the wizarding world had gone through, and talking to Ron during one of his rare moments of clarity, all of it gave her the courage and mental boost she needed in order to initiate her task. She waited until Ron had fallen into a deep sleep, gathered her things, and slipped the altered Time-Turner over her head. "I'm not afraid of you," she muttered to it as she set the dials. "I'm not afraid because I know what I'm doing is right." She cast the incantation and, with a last lingering look at Ron's sleeping form, was gone.


	2. Part Two: The Past

PART TWO: The Past

_5. An interlude in the morning, many years ago_

A high-pitched klaxon forced Hermione out of the comfort of sleep and she groggily searched for the origins of the screech. _'There's an Alarm Charm on your wand,'_ some distant, rational thought pitched in. It was the part of her mind that could function as a morning person before the customary three cups of black tea. She groaned and sat up to blearily hunt for the intrusion and to silence it. _'It's under the pillow,'_ the thoughts cheerfully interjected.

"Bully for you," Hermione muttered, not awake enough to deal with rational thinking. She silenced the wand and threw it onto the bed table, hearing it land with an unceremonious clatter. "That charm has been around for hundreds of years. Why isn't it that somebody hasn't found a way to make it less aggravating?" She buried her head back into the pillow and groaned again. It had been a rough night. Even though she had been playing the role of "Andromache Black" for weeks now, she'd lived the rest of her life as Hermione Granger. It had been the nightmares from that life that kept her tossing and turning until dawn.

An inopportune knock on the door interrupted any chance she had at falling back asleep and Hermione moaned into her pillow, willing the presence at the door to go away. Instead, Regulus poked his head inside and smirked at her. "I'm supposed to see if you're awake. We leave for King's Cross in a few hours." He watched as she dug her face further into the pillow and screamed.

"Excuse me for performing a good deed," he replied, slightly affronted at her screams. "I thought you might want to do something with the matted mess on your head called 'hair,' but it's fine if you want to leave for Hogwarts looking as if you'd spent in the night in Knocturn Alley's slums. You could probably get a fan club started that way, actually. You'd no doubt be the most popular girl at Hogwarts in no time," he told her. The door slammed shut before a copy of _Toujours Pur: The Black Family History_ could brain him.

Hermione pulled her head out of the pillow and propped herself up on her elbows. Two months ago, she'd left Ron, Andromeda, Teddy, and her broken future behind to become Andromache Black. Her venture into the past had started out rough. Just as she had predicted, the Gringrotts goblins had not been happy opening the vault, but she'd stirred up enough fuss, and quoted enough ancient manuscripts, that they'd eventually opened the doors, albeit reluctantly.

That movement was enough to situate her as a "long lost" Black heiress. Hermione hadn't had time to step out of the bank before Walburga Black was latched onto her arm, 'kindly' offering Grimmauld Place as a summer homestead. It also hadn't taken the elder woman long to show the true colours of her hospitality. The duration of Hermione's stay had been heavily dotted with 'Aunt' Walburga matchmaking between 'Andromache' and Regulus. A day hadn't gone by without awkwardness because of Walburga's dedication, and Regulus couldn't apologize enough for his mother's meddling. Their relief at the upcoming school year, then, was apparent. Hermione would be leaving to complete her seventh year at Hogwarts, as well as freeing herself from Walburga's iron clutches. It would also mark the first real start she would have at fixing history. _'By rubbing elbows and grinning when I really want to gut somebody,'_ she thought miserably. It had been a rough two months.

However, there was a list of priorities she'd have to accomplish before she could start rescuing the future. At the top of it was a shower to guarantee that her curls remained curly and black. Mentally taking a moment to prepare herself for the rest of the day, Hermione rolled out of bed and promptly landed on the floor.

There was a pregnant pause of silence before a muzzy, muttered "Ouch" followed it.

After another few seconds, a hand reached up from the floor and groped around on the bed table before it found her wand.

More general shuffling around the room led to gathering her grooming supplies before making her way to the adjoining bathroom. Andromache was a Black, and as such, had to live up to the stereotypical image of a Black's well grooming. This did not account for trying to brush through corkscrew curls after a shower, though. It had only taken Hermione twenty-four hours to discover she could spend nearly as much time trying to deal with her new, dumb hair as she did getting clean. This morning, by the time the comb snapped in a corkscrew curl the third time, she angrily threw it to the ground and stomped out of the room. It was already turning out to be such a lovely day. The prospects of what else might be held in store for her almost made her want to crawl back into bed and whimper.

_6. An interlude in Kings Cross_

Hermione nervously rubbed the silk lining of her navy robes between her thumb and forefinger as she made her way through King's Cross Station. Regulus, whether through familial chivalry or friendliness, was leading her by her elbow, dragging his way through Platform 9 ¾. She didn't bother asking about her Hogwarts trunk, although it had been left behind when they'd taken a Portkey to the train station. After Walburga's goodbye, one that heavily hinted at the benefits of an elopement between Regulus and Andromache, and therefore, the combination of the family vaults, she couldn't have left Grimmauld Place fast enough. Two months of biting her tongue at what she really wanted to tell her 'Aunt' led to an inability to hold back much longer.

"I really hope they put you in Slytherin," Regulus admitted, dragging her towards the train. "I mean, there are some great twats in there—you'll want to avoid Kamalia Avery, for one. She's the blond in the blue robes trying to coordinate the house elf with all her trunks. She thinks she's head-bitch ever since they announced her engagement to Pyotr Parkinson—but not all Slytherins are as bad as the reputation gives them." A loud bang from the other side of the platform caused them both to jump, and, after regarding the cloud of purple smoke that covered the area, Regulus tightened his hold on her arm. "We're a right bit better than the sodding Gryffindors. They think the sun shines out of their arses because they've got the tossing 'ingenious' Marauders. I heard that Dumbledore even gave both heads positions to Gryffindor this year. 'Mudblood' Evans apparently made Head Girl. Dumbledore is out of his mind."

At the term "Mudblood," Hermione's drifting thoughts woke up indignantly. She was surprised to hear the word come out of his mouth. Thus far, her impression of Regulus had been rather high, as he had not seemed to buy into any of his mother's insane rants on blood purity. In fact, he'd been the first one to roll his eyes when Walburga had gone on a tangent within a day of Hermione's arrival to Grimmauld Place. Therefore, hearing the derision in his voice when he spoke of Lily Evans took Hermione's temper to a dangerous place.

Coldly, she drew her arm from out of Regulus's grasp and fixed him with a glare. "I don't care what your personal beliefs are," she told him, her voice short and clipped. "In fact, I've seen you roll your eyes at your mother whenever she starts the 'Toujours Pur' rant, so I know you aren't some crazy pure-blood fanatic. But the next time I hear that horrid term come out of your mouth, my wand will be giving you the warning." With those words, Hermione haughtily made her way through the throng of happy Hogwarts students and left a surprised Regulus to flounder at her back.

Within seconds, she'd lost sight of him and was able to breathe a sigh of relief. Playing the part of Andromache had not been too difficult yet, Hermione thought, but some things would always rile her blood and make her see red. The term "Mudblood" would forever bring nasty reminders of Draco Malfoy to the forefront of her mind, no matter how far back in her memory she tried to put them. The least she could do was to limit the use of the term around her in hopes she could rescue her image that way.

Hermione quickly lost herself in her angry thoughts, thus allowing her body to act separately from her mind as she approached the Hogwarts Express. Slamming the side of her foot into a random trunk, then, was enough to send it reeling back into focus. _"Sweet Gryffindor's, Nimue's eeking, sodding, freaking,_ flying _BLAST_!" she sputtered, tears springing to her eyes at the sharp throbbing. Ronald Weasley School For Swearing, meet Hermione Granger, Avoider of Strong Profanities. When in doubt—or pain—the reflexes took over.

"Merlin! Are you alright, Miss?" a voice, attached to a pair of arms and the reason she wasn't lying prone on the filthy King's Cross Station floor, asked worriedly.

"Of course I'm not alright!" she cried, reaching down to inspect her ailing appendage. "I'm lucky that chuffing trunk didn't alleviate me of my foot. Whose stupid hunk of wood is that and why in Merlin's name did they leave it where people were walking?" she asked murderously.

"That would be mine," a lazy, third voice added. Hermione gazed up from her foot, where she was feeling her toes through the shoe to make sure none were detached, and had a start. There, in front of her, a familiar male teenager lazily leaned arm-over-shoulders against an exceedingly familiar and bespectacled boy that gave her a start and sent her heart throbbing. She tried to school her expression into a cool mask as she reminded herself that it wasn't Harry, it couldn't be Harry. "I left it there because I didn't think it'd be in danger of silly bints not watching where they were going. Having a nice cuddle there, Moony?"

The question was not directed at her and Hermione looked up, and then up a little more, to see that the pair of arms that had rescued her from the muck of King's Cross Station belonged to the reddening, if not considerably younger, face of Professor Lupin. She scrambled to right herself and escape from his hold, which caused the trunk's owner to laugh. "And here she is, treating you like you'll bite! No worries, Darling. We've done our best to tame him so he'll only snap if you're into that sort of thing," he added with a wink. Hermione's brain was still working in circles too quickly to pay his innuendo much attention. The trunk owner's friend, the one with glasses and messy, black hair, was too familiar for comfort. After two years of nightmares that involved the death of an eerily similar-looking best friend, Hermione's brain began to panic.

"Don't listen to Sirius's illusions of grandeur. The only taming he's done lately involves James and a trouser snake," Moony shot back to his friend, not taking offence at Hermione's dart from his arms. Her rationality, which worked in the background frenzy of her mild panic attack, quietly surveyed the situation and reminded her that she'd best get used to not referring to him as 'Professor Lupin.' It would cause a lot of raised eyebrows and she wasn't sure how she could talk herself out of that type of situation.

The argument between the boys continued as they proceeded to snowball the conversation out of control. "As if. Prongs has been taking lessons on being coy from Evans. He hasn't let me get past above-waist fondling. Not until I put a ring on his finger, he says, the silly twat. _Carpe diem_, mate!" Sirius cried, confirming Hermione's suspicions as to his familiarity. To her surprise, though, Sirius turned to his bespectacled lean-to and planted a firm kiss on the other boy's lips.

"Get off me, you nancy pouf!" James—not Harry, she forcefully reminded herself—cried, struggling in Sirius's grasp. He fought in vain to get a hand in between their faces and it quickly escalated into a scuffle over dominance as the two tripped over Sirius's trunk. She watched in growing horror as James and Sirius began to roll around on the ground and fought to pin the other down. Around them, other students had stopped their conversations to cheer the two on.

"Are they always like this?" she wondered, watching them with growing fascination.

"No. They're usually much worse," a fourth boy with straw-blonde hair commented from the other side of Remus. "James is on his best behaviour, on account that he's co-Heads with Lily Evans this year."

"Those two are in their _seventh_ year?" she questioned, momentarily forgetting the timeline ingrained by Andromeda in lieu of watching Sirius pin James down so he could make taunting, puckering kissy faces at his friend.

Remus replied for her. "Their outstanding showmanship of maturity didn't clue you in? I'm not surprised. Try sharing a dorm with them. I've been stuck with those two since first year. Which is a lot better than being against them, anyway. Less dungbombs end up in my bed, and they're free to focus their energy on more constructive pursuits." He abruptly changed the topic of conversation. "I haven't seen you at Hogwarts before. Are you new?" he asked. Hermione wished she could tune out James's muffled protests of rape as easily as he did.

"Yes. I'm living with some family in England. It's easier by far to complete my education at Hogwarts versus messing around with tutors. To be truthful, I'm rather grateful to get away from my hostess. She's been smothering me in hopes that I'll marry into the family so she can marry into my Gringotts vault. It's been endearing," she replied, nervously smoothing out her robes.

"Sounds like it's been absolutely smashing. I can't imagine a better way to spend the break," the blonde boy snickered.

"Oh, really?" Hermione turned to him with a hand on her hip in response to the challenge in his voice. "How did you spend yours?"

He grinned and pointed at James, who had overcome his friend and was seated on Sirius's face. "With those two," he replied.

"Educational, was it?" she deadpanned.

"Absolutely enlightening," Remus replied with a matching tone.

"You say it like you didn't like it, Moony. All those quiet nights, watching Pads starkers at the lake, our late night romps. The scantily-clad girls next door and the resulting panty raids," James responded, waggling his eyebrows. He stood up from where he was asphyxiating Sirius with his rear end. "I'm not quite sure I'll never forget it. I know Mum won't. She walked in on Padfoot and one of those bints. Dad had to break out the brandy. She'll be haunted forever by Sirius's gigantic, white bum."

"I didn't hear her complaining at the time. In fact, she practically wanted to join along, so you're not allowed to get your bits in a twist just because I invited her. Anyway. Your Mum is a Level-O mood killer," Sirius responded accusingly, using his trunk to pull himself off the dirty floor. He haughtily brushed off his robes, transforming himself from the squabbling teenager to the aristocratic heir. "Who are you anyway, Love?"

A stiff voice interrupted from behind her. "Andromache? Are these… people… bothering you?" Five pairs of eyes turned to gaze upon Regulus and four wands slipped into palms. _'Impeccable timing, Regulus Black,'_ Hermione mentally sighed, trying to work out the best way to get out of the situation without it resulting in more violence.

"If we were bothering her, would it be any concern of yours?" The frosty tone in Sirius's voice surprised her. It was one Hermione had only heard directed at Severus Snape.

"Seeing as how her well being was placed into my care, yes, I believe it would be my concern. I was given specific orders not to let her fall into disreputable crowds. Considering your idea of fun is greasing the dungeon hallways with lubricant—right in front of the Slytherin common room—I'd consider you disreputable," Regulus taunted back, voice turning just as chilly.

"Did you really?" Hermione accused, forgetting the growing tension and fixing Sirius with her best "Ronald Weasley Wants to Borrow My Potion's Essay" No-Nonsense look.

"Several times. Once right after the sorting ceremony last year. The first years weren't even able to get into the common room that night," Regulus replied.

"It was a welcoming present," James loftily tossed out, shrugging off the accusation.

"A welcoming present for becoming an arse-wipe," Sirius added. Hermione wished she could forcefully rip the smirk off this face. She was sure there'd be a spell in the Black Family Library that could do it, too. Instead, she settled with verbally putting him in his place.

"But they were first-years," she interjected. "How can you label an eleven-year-old who's only just set their foot into the castle?"

Sirius shrugged at her question. "They're old enough for the Sorting Hat to sort them with the rest of the bunch of snakes. Since they'd be terrorizing the other houses eventually anyway, we thought it'd be a good idea to get the ball rolling."

"Does it make you feel like a man to pick on eleven-year-olds? Or is it because you've got nothing better to do with you time?" she accused with her eyebrows turned down in disgust.

Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione could see Remus grin to himself. What she didn't know was that Lily Evans had said something along the same lines the morning after the incident. After she had finished privately "settling matters" with James, of course, which involved embarrassing boils he refused to see the Infirmary for. As it was, Hermione's comment had pulled the smirk off of Sirius's face.

"And what's it to you?" Sirius demanded. He'd uncrossed his arms and turned to glare at her. "You don't even know who we are and you've never even been to Hogwarts, so why do you get to judge our actions?"

"I've dealt with people like you before in my past. You're just big bullies who don't care that you're hurting somebody else, or that you're damaging other people. All you see are these labels and you don't bother taking time to look past that to the person underneath," Hermione shot back. In her tirade, she'd taken a step forward to Sirius and her face had begun to grow red in anger. "If it weren't for big bullies like you, and your pre-described notions of inter-house rivalry, I highly doubt there'd be a need for Gryffindors and Slytherins to hate each other."

"'Big bullies.' Are they related to the same bullies that steal Ravenclaws' homework, cheat at Quidditch against Hufflepuff every year, and hex Gryffindors behind their back because they're too much like chicken shite to directly face a person? The same bullies that believe in so called 'Blood-Purity' and would rather permanently erase anybody who can't trace their family trees in a circle? Those who don't care if a person is intelligent, smart, and talented unless they've got a full Gringotts vault and marry their cousin?" he sneered, also taking steps towards her in fury. The rest of the group watched on in fascinated horror as the sparks rose between Sirius and Hermione.

"And there you go again with labelling people. If you gave an eleven-year-old," she placed emphasis on the age, "the benefit of doubt and treated him or her like a human being, instead of the absolute scum of the earth, then maybe he or she wouldn't stoop to stealing homework because they could study with the Ravenclaw, or they could work alongside Hufflepuffs in Quidditch. I also doubt that they would need to hex Gryffindors in an attempt to receive some sort of warped sense of retribution. Retribution they feel is needed because a bunch of great, hulking cretins played pranks on kids too young and scared to defend themselves." Her face had turned an embarrassing shade of red, but she was too caught up in the argument to notice.

"I see you didn't bother defending any pre-described notions of blood-purity," he shot back. "Taking up on some extra-curricular activities of shagging the family while annihilating the local Mudbloods?" Inside, a rational portion of her mind, one that wasn't dying to wrap her hands around Sirius's throat, groaned. It was bad enough that her tensions were running high without coming across a Sirius Black who was just as infuriating in the past as he had been when fully grown. She could have probably gotten out of this whole argument without drawing blood, though, if he hadn't uttered the "M" word. The high tensions and stress, though, brought out the vengeful side in her. Where the old, unstressed Hermione would have finished the conversation and stalked off, the one that was stuck in an odd timeline, playing a Black heiress, took another step towards him until they were almost chest-to-chest. There was a brief internal struggle to keep from connecting her fist to his perfect nose. She settled for jabbing him in the chest with her forefinger instead.

"The way I look at it, I don't see much of a difference between your blood purists or my great, hulking bullies," she snarled, poking him again. "If other bullies," poke, "think it's a fun idea to condemn an eleven-year-old for having particular qualities," poke, "and label the eleven-year-olds as a bully," _jab_, "then who's to say that it doesn't become a self-fulfilling prophecy?" _sta_—he caught her finger before it prodded him in the chest again.

"If you don't stop bloody poking me, I am going to rip off your finger and use it for owl bait," he spat.

Hermione tugged at her hand but he refused to let go. "And you have got two seconds to release me before I shove my wand up your nose and make you sorry you were ever born," she yelled. Duelling instincts, acquired through a war, were something a person carried with them for the rest of their lives. Hermione knew some rather clever hexes. In fact, she'd invented quite a few of them herself.

The two were practically eye-to-eye, faces red, hair wild, and panting with anger. It lasted like this for a few seconds before he released her finger and flung her hand back at her. He pulled back with a sneer on his face. "Who's to say I'm not already?" he taunted in a mockingly sweet voice. He turned to address Regulus with a sneer worthy of a Malfoy. "Take your girlfriend and sequester her away with all your other Death Eaters in the dungeon. She'll fit right in, won't she?" he mocked.

"I'm not his girlfriend," she interrupted, matching his sweetly derisive tone with an additional air of haughtiness—something Hermione felt could only be achieved with the spells and potions she was using to look like a Black. "I'm his cousin."

_7. An interlude in the hallways_

Sirius walked arm-in-arm out of the Great Hall with his best mates. James was loudly retelling the joke about a warlock, a dog, and a barkeep's virgin daughter while keeping an eye on Evans to see if he could get her to blush. Sirius had heard him tell the joke before. Chances were, if James was allowed to finish it, Evans would have her wand pointed at his throat—or possibly lower and considerably more important parts than his throat—by the end. Thus, it was clearly in Sirius's best interest to watch how the action unfurled.

Before it could end, however, someone cleared its throat from behind, interrupting James as he raunchily acted out the warlock's role towards the end of the story. Damn. Evans face had only just started turning red and James was only just at the punch line.

"I really hate to interrupt the story, even though I can bet where it's headed," a dry, feminine voice commented. Sirius turned his head and a sneer fell upon his lips. Andromache Black stood in the middle of the corridor, her hands on her hips and her head tilted at a slight angle. "I need to borrow… err… Black for a quick moment. By the time I'm done with him, I'm sure our Head Girl will be done informing Potter about the proper duties and self-conduct for the Head Boy, and then he can finish his tale."

Sirius met her gaze coolly, grey for blue. He blinked lazily, considered her for a moment, and continued walking. "I don't really have anything to say to you," he replied loftily, shrugging as he walked. "You probably aren't willing to tell us how you Confunded the Sorting Hat into putting you into Gryffindor, so I'm not willing to stoop down to talk to a Death Eater cunt."

The next thing he knew, Sirius found himself flung back against a wall and was alternating between looking down at the wand pointed at his throat and the feminine hand that clutched the fabric of his robes. The other Marauders' cries of protest died with a quick glare from Andromache, who had pinned Sirius to the spot. "It's about that," she informed him serenely, eyes flickering from his face to where her wand was digging into his throat. The hallway had fallen deathly silent.

"I'm not going to insult you by pretending we're going to like each other. I know you think I'm the pure-blood twat of a Death Eater's whore" she spat 'whore' at him venomously. "I have ears just like everybody else and I heard you all but shout it out in the Hogwarts Express hallways. I'd like to establish, too, that I think you're a pompous prat who's got his bits shoved so far up his bum, that he's having trouble controlling his thought process. But if you're willing to drop your labels for one second, you'll realise that I am not the person you think I am. You'd probably realise a lot of people aren't the way you think they are." She stopped and did not elaborate on her words.

Instead, she continued her tirade. "You will, however, show the smallest ounce of respect for me while I'm in your house and note that, if I was sorted there, I must have been placed there for a reason, just like you were. This may be my only chance to complete my education, and I won't have you or any other halfwits ruining it for me. In turn, please don't make me repeat this conversation again. I'll respect you if you respect me, but I'm willing to go out on a limb and drop all pretences at humility when I say I am extremely confident in my duelling abilities." With that, Andromache pulled her wand away from his throat and used the hand clutching his robes to push off him.

She busily brushed off imaginary lint from her robes and met his eyes coolly. "I'm glad we could have this conversation," she started. She flicked her curls over her shoulder and turned promptly. "It's always nice to speak my mind clearly."

_8. An interlude in Charms_

Charms would be interesting today. Apparently, proper duelling procedure was still on the curriculum in Harry's father's days at Hogwarts. By the time Hermione had been admitted to Hogwarts, duelling had been removed from the syllabus. Grimly looking around, she had to raise her eyebrows. Advanced Charms was a Slytherin-Gryffindor class and, from the way various classmates were cracking their knuckles, it was going to be intense. She gazed over to where Severus Snape glared at James Potter with unrestrained malice. If this was how students were taught to duel, Lockhart had been extremely daft to co-head a duelling club with Professor Snape.

"Nervous?" Lily Evans asked her. The redhead had a puzzling smile on her face, as if she could read the other girl all too easily.

"Not exactly," Hermione replied warily. "I'm a fair-hand when it comes to practical knowledge, but putting it into practice is more instinctual." _'I'm also afraid I'll go too far, or how I'll react,'_ she silently added. The last time she had duelled, it had been in the Final Battle. Duelling for one's life and doing it for a class presentation were two completely different situations: using an Unforgivable on a Death Eater might be understandable, but using one on a classmate would wind her up in Azkaban.

Flitwick called the class to attention. "I know you're all excited to see how today's results will be. However, Professor McGonagall was kind enough to remind me that duelling in a Slytherin-Gryffindor class could easily get out of hand. Due to this, I've split you up into groups by house and ability." There was a groan that suspiciously came from the Marauders' direction. "The goal is to defeat your opponent, Mr. Black, not end up in front of the Wizengamot for killing them." With a flourish of Flitwick's wand, the group assignments appeared on the board. Gazing up at it, Hermione could have slowly murdered the Charms professor. The fact that she was in a group with James, Lily, and Sirius did not bode well.

"Mind letting me have a go at Potter?" Lily asked darkly under her breath as the two reluctantly made their way over to the two boys. "I've been meaning to cast a few spells his way this year, but my hands have been tied on account of being Head Girl."

Hermione grinned at her wryly. "It might be best if you take on my cousin and I get the Head Boy. Knowing those two, Potter would go way too easily on you, and thus, insulting your prowess. And knowing Sirius, I don't think our duel would remain innocent for too long."

Lily shrugged. "You're probably right, but I have my own vendettas to work out. What other chance am I going to get to publicly humiliate James Potter in my own setting? Anyway, if he's completely pussy-whipped, it'll be a quick, satisfying victory."

"Did we hear something about whipping pussies?" James asked lasciviously as the two neared him. "I think I might be able to schedule somebody in for a very thorough beating. Care for a face-off, Evans?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "The only beating you'll be doing, Potter, involves you and your hand. Or possibly me, triumphantly standing over your fetally-positioned body." Sirius let out a guffaw of laughter. "Andromache and I already talked about the switch-off. We agree it'd be satisfying to give you another reason to limp around the castle, as well as point-blank refuse to see Madame Pomfrey," she added, alluding to the boils she'd given him during sixth year for playing a prank on first-year Slytherins.

"An all Black face-off. I think I'd rather watch it from a safe distance," James stated. He and Lily wandered off to a safe duelling distance and she was left facing a pensive Sirius.

"You do realise that I'm one of the top students in my year," Sirius commented offhandedly. She gazed back at him, surprised. She wasn't even expecting that much of a warning from the jerk.

"If Professor Flitwick didn't think I'd be able to survive this duel, he wouldn't have put us in the same group," Hermione replied. She haughtily tossed her dark curls over a shoulder. "I think it'll be harder following the rules of the duel, and not seriously hurting each other, than anything else."

They descended into a tense silence where she spent the next few moments composing her thoughts and coaching herself. _'Your repertoire for spell work is extensive,'_ she thought rationally. _'It shouldn't be that hard to think of a spell that doesn't kill, maim, or severely injure. As far as things are concerned, anything else he deserves. Remember, you were there for the incident involving Severus Snape and twenty amorous house elves at breakfast._'

She cringed at the mental reminder, wishing to wipe her mind clear of those thoughts. She was pretty positive that she'd never be able to purge the image of Snape surrounded by stripping house elves from her brain. Therefore, she was grateful when Professor Flitwick called the class to attention, bringing the various groups around the room into position.

"We're about to start," he warned. "On the mark of my wand, you may begin. I'd like to remind you that the goal of this duel is to disable or disarm your opponent only." He cast Lily a glance that had the girl blushing deeply. "For any person sent to the Infirmary with serious injury, I will deduct five points from their house. Make sure to follow proper duel etiquette and bow to your partner before you begin."

Hermione startled. She'd almost forgotten to bow. In wartime, the wizards that bowed before a duel got hexed five ways to Sunday for presenting their head as an unshielded target.

Before she could completely compose that thought, Professor Flitwick's wand signalled the start of duels and Hermione caught herself matching Sirius's stiff bow. Both wands snapped to attention and grey eyes met blue ones. Sirius's wand twitched and she caught herself snapping up a Shield Charm without even thinking. His bark of derisive laughter grated against her ears like nails on a chalkboard. The bastard was just messing around with her mind.

Making a quick mental decision, Hermione broke down her Shield Charm and quickly threw a Disarming Charm in his direction. It was one of the least offensive spells she knew, but she figured she'd start easy and world her way up. Because of the simplicity of the spell, she was half expecting him to counter it and wasn't too surprised when he did. However, as if his easy reaction to the charm weren't enough, he stooped low enough to taunt her. "What are we in, third year?" he mocked. "This is a duel, not a chance to get a loser look at my wand."

The innuendo did not go ignored and her next spell was not as friendly as the last. She wildly cast another charm at him, a spell that was slightly more offensive than the previous one, yet feeble enough that a first-year would use in the hallways.

'_Come on,_' she yelled at herself. _'Harry's been able to cast that one since second year. If you were trying to end this duel quickly, you're going about it the wrong way.'_

While Hermione had her mental battle, Sirius had been able to set up his own initiative against her. With a Shielding Charm for protection, he quickly cast a barrage of various, if not insultingly simple, hexes at her. Hermione was thrust out of her thoughts in an attempt to dodge a spell aimed for her torso, yet broke out into wild dancing when Sirius's well-placed Tarantallegra spell managed to hit her and send her legs flailing.

Angrily, Hermione muttered the counter spell to end her dance and contemplated Sirius's guffawing form. He had taken too much amusement out of his petty spells and it grated on her nerves that she hadn't been able to dodge it completely. Even more annoying was the thought that, if this had been a real duel, she could have been killed by now. Hermione was justifiably pleased, then, when, with a sly movement, she silenced Sirius's laughter with an Enlargement Charm to his nose. Perhaps he'd be less likely to pick on Severus Snape if he had a beak of his own. To add insult to injury, she muttered, _"Difindo"_ at his belt and watched him trip as his trousers fell.

By the time his nose reached grapefruit proportions, Sirius had been able to stop its growth, much to Hermione's displeasure. This time, it was her smirk to spark his temper. In his anger, Sirius sent a shower of small hexes and charms against her, aiming to gain back some of his pride. The spells quickly flared into bright lights against her failing Shield Charms as she fought to return his attack. One spell managed to whiz past her ear. Another made the hair on her arm rise. A third tore a hole in her robes. Any remaining amusement was lost, though, when she noted that his next hex was aimed for her head. She watched, and recognized, the familiar swipes of his wand with dread as he sent a Hair Loss hex in her direction. Even in a different, stressful timeline, some things in her psyche were intrinsically related to who Hermione was, and a close bond to her hair, even if they were stupid, perfect curls, was one of them.

Without thinking, Hermione's old duelling instincts rose to the surface as her fear for her hair came to the forefront. With a shout, she quickly whipped her wand through the air, yelling _"Protego Horribilis!"_ a little louder than was necessary. Sirius failed to notice when his Hair Loss Charm rebounded against her powerful shield and hit him instead. Perhaps her reluctance to duel had lulled him into a false sense of security, but it was clear that he hadn't been expecting such a powerful spell, or strong reaction, to come from her wand.

The emotions the duel brought up, including the growing feeling of panic brought on by spells whizzing too close to their intended target, made Hermione anxious to end the fight as quickly as possible. Somewhere between dodging a powerful Bag-Bogey Hex, which innocently sailed over her head and hit Peter Pettigrew, and a _Levicorpus_ that sent Professor Flitwick up-si-down, Hermione had forgotten that she and Sirius were in a controlled, classroom setting. Gone, too, was the thought that Sirius Black was one of the 'good guys.' In response, there was a growing feeling of 'I want this over now' screaming through her mind.

Taking initiative to end the duel as quickly as possible, Hermione took an offensive pose and began to vehemently flash various charms and hexes in Sirius's direction. A Slashing Hex hit his shoulder, a Bruising Spell knocked the wind out of his lungs. He barely dodged out of the way of a Bone Splintering curse. He had no time to recover when a wayward spell ignited the sleeve of his robes into a brilliant blaze. Her sound of triumph was silenced when he evenly extinguished the flames with a jet of water from his wand.

Both panting from the effort they had exuded thus far in the duel, Hermione and Sirius came to a momentary pause as they sized up their competition. Hermione was pleasantly surprised at the hint of respect written across her opponent's face. It was a momentary feeling, though, that was dashed when his wand flew up took the offensive against her. She managed to avoid a sickly, yellow spell aimed for her face, but noted another had hit her when painful boils erupted across her body. With a grumble, Hermione opted for a quick, if not exceedingly powerful, healing charm to reduce the effect of the boils, thus surprising her duelling partner once again.

She watched as Sirius waited for her retaliation. The look on his face was mixed with trepidation and amusement. She recognized the trend in their duel. There had been many breaks and pauses during their fight, as if one opponent was waiting for the other to try and surpass the last spell. It was less a duel, she considered, than a tug-of-war to see which partner could ultimately win with the least amount of effort. She just hoped he could read her face well enough to know that she had not enjoyed where some of the boils had ended up.

The moment of pointed silence ended when a thought came to Hermione's mind. A cold smirk drew across her lips as she lazily whipped her wand through the air. Slowly, enunciating the words so Sirius would catch them, she called out, _"Avis Oppungo!"_ Just like the time she'd cast it upon Ron, yellow canaries formed from her wand and angrily aimed for Sirius's hairless cranium. He fought to protect himself from the avian attack and Hermione used this opportunity to cast a spell on the classroom chairs, bringing them to life. She watched with a satisfied sense of approval as Sirius fought against dive-bombing canaries and rampaging chairs.

Amidst charging chairs and sharp, canary beaks, Hermione could tell that Sirius was losing his cool. In his growing anxiety, he gripped his wand tightly and used an excruciatingly powerful _Reducto_ at his assailants; both chairs and birds were reduced to a fine power. Sirius's equally strong _Waddiwassi_ sent various classroom supplies flying at her. Hermione watched in a panic as quills, bottles of ink, various textbooks, and a small table zoomed through the air with her as their target. She rolled to the floor, trying her best to duck out of the way, and took the initiative to cast a charm at her opponent that would blindfold him.

In retrospect, she would later contemplate, blindfolding her duelling partner in a non-lethal duel was not the best idea. Any sense of triumph faded from Hermione's mind when Sirius wildly flailed about, fighting with his blindfold. His wand point landed in her direction and, thinking ahead, Hermione dove out of the way as he yelled out _"Expulso!"_ The spot where she had been standing detonated into small bits of stone as his explosion spell created a gaping crater in the Charms classroom. Amongst the rubble, the spot gently smoked in response.

Sirius's explosion, the smoking crater, the anxiety of the situation, and the general feeling of panic all brought up emotional responses in Hermione that she had tried her best to suppress since the Final Battle. Panic and instinct, two parts of her mind that had been fine-tuned through the war, forced her to temporarily forget that she was mock-fighting a friend in the middle of Charms class. Quickly, without thinking, Hermione shot out a knee-reversal hex at her adversary, sending him sprawling to the ground with a shout of pain. Without a second thought, her next spell was cast, aimed at his chest, and she watched with a cold sense of satisfaction, as he turned into a stone momentum in mid-shout.

Whirling from one incapacitated opponent, Hermione's fighting instincts jumped around to find the next person to fight. Her eyes quickly scanned the room and locked on Peter Pettigrew, who froze at the primal, deadly look on her face. Her wand slowly moved upwards and paused halfway up. It took several moments of gentle silence for the panic to die down, and her rationality to come forth, before Hermione remembered her settings. She let it fall to the ground, where it hit with a clatter.

"Oh dear," Professor Flitwick murmured from her side, causing her to jump back from him. He pretended to ignore the silence in the classroom. "Mr. Black will need to be taken to the Infirmary, but I guess it couldn't be helped. There probably wouldn't be much of you to take to Madam Pomfrey if you hadn't jumped aside from his explosion spell." He coordinated James and Remus to gather up the stone Sirius with a shake of his head. "Every year, Albus insists I have these duelling classes. I should be grateful nobody is more seriously injured. Six years ago, they had to rebuild the entire classroom."

Hermione slowly looked around at her peers. Many looked worse for wear. James, she noted, was walking oddly and the look of triumph on Lily's face led her to conclude as to why that was. Several students used the hems on their robes to stop the bleeding from minor cuts and a few more were limping. She wasn't surprised, when Professor Flitwick signalled the end of class, that many began a trek to the Infirmary.

What she didn't like were the looks of awe and approval on several classmates faces. She didn't want their recognition for having lost control over her actions in this duel.

'_I'm not Azkaban-bound,'_ Hermione thought, _'but I might be in trouble if word of this gets back to Dumbledore.' _She gathered her school things and followed her classmates out of the room and down to the Great Hall for dinner.

She wasn't allowed to remain in her reverie for long, though, as an arm threw itself over her shoulder. "Is everything okay? You seem like you're having a bit of a sulk there." Regulus gazed down at her with a curious and concerned look on his face.

"I accidentally turned your brother into stone," was her hallow reply.

She had to give him credit when he didn't trip over her response. "Oh. Well, I'm sure it happens to the best of us. In fact, I'm sure it would happen to some of the worst of us, too. Sirius is a major prat to just about everybody that knows him."

"When you put it like that…" she mused. They had reached the doors of the Great Hall and both paused.

"I guess you'll be wanting head over to the Gryffindor table and pretend you don't know any sneaky, Slytherin snakes again," he offered, removing his arm from her shoulders.

She drew away from him so she could fix him with a better look. "I beg your pardon?"

He shrugged in response. "I just assumed that, because you haven't really said hello or anything these past few weeks, you were going to pull a 'Sirius' card and pretend you didn't know me."

Gauging his face for a reaction, Hermione noticed the spark of hurt that crossed his features. She had to mentally pause and focus on working with the male emotional range. "Of course I'm not pretending that I don't know you. Merlin, I hope I'm oodles ahead of Sirius when it comes to my maturity. You were probably the only reason I survived two months of Walburga Black, something I appreciate greatly. However, these past couple of weeks have been stressful for me and I didn't think the Slytherin, Regulus Black, would want to be seen with his daft, Gryffindor cousin."

He grinned at her in response and linked his arm with hers. "Let's give them another reason to gossip then. Shall I escort the Lady Black to her dining table?"

"Oh, excellent. This gossip fodder will keep your mother happy for ages," she responded dryly, letting him drag her into the Great Hall. "We'll both be getting happy letters in the morning, wondering if she can start sending out the engagement announcements."

"You give my mother way too much credit. If I were you, I'd be expecting an owl before bedtime."

_9.1 An interlude in the fine art of potions_

"Has anybody seen James?"

Hermione looked up from where she was curled in an armchair. Peter stood in the middle of the common room, arms loaded with a multitude of textbooks and rolls of parchment. He looked lost without the presence of the other Marauders.

"I hear he got detention with Professor McGonagall every night for the next week," Remus replied from another couch. "Somebody told our Head Girl that he and Sirius may have been behind the prank on Tuesday where Hufflepuff firsties lewdly propositioned Snape every hour, on the hour. I guess they weren't very good at covering up their tracks because Lily looked furious."

"I wonder who squealed…" Peter trailed off.

"I wonder whom indeed," Remus replied, eyes drifting over to where Hermione turned another page in her book. She remained silent.

"Do you know when they're supposed to be back?" Peter wanted to know, dropping his books on the coffee table in defeat. "James promised he'd help me pass this potions test we've got next week. Slughorn says that if I fail another exam, he'll give me detention for a month and make me pickle rat intestines until I learn how to properly brew Polyjuice."

Remus and Peter turned when they heard the scoff from Hermione's direction. "As long as you follow the instructions, Polyjuice Potion isn't that hard to brew. A second-year could do it," she commented, gazing out of the corner of her eye at the boys. She returned to her book, once again ignoring them.

Remus shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I was bollocks at potions. Professor Slughorn eventually begged me to drop the subject. The dungeons apparently couldn't sustain another explosion of a 'Lupin-grandeur,'" he commented.

Peter's eyebrows were furrowed. "How would you know if Polyjuice Potion is hard to brew?" he asked her. "Have you brewed it before?"

Hermione made a noncommittal noise, lost in her copy of _Ancient Runes Through the Ages_. "The most trouble I had with it was getting the correct hair," she responded, flipping a page. "The text is very specific about human-to-human transformations only. I wouldn't suggest skiving on this step."

"Could you teach me how to brew it then?" Peter asked eagerly. This caught Hermione's attention, and she pulled her head out of her book in alarm. She should have seen the conversation steering in this direction. She'd spent enough years tutoring Neville Longbottom in Potions that she didn't need another one like him. It was too late to say 'no,' though, as Peter had already begun shuffling his books closer to where she sat. That damned hopeful look in his eyes reminded her of Ron begging to read her potions essays. She could feel herself cave in.

She heaved a great sigh and mentally prepared herself. "Sure, why not?" she muttered. Peter didn't catch the sarcasm in her voice but she was sure Remus's smirk meant he had.

_9.2_

"No! You add the Boomslang skin after the Ashwinder eggshell!" Hermione cried, stopping Peter's hand. "Otherwise, you'll leave a crater in the floor! They'll be lucky if they can gather enough of us to scrape into a jelly jar!"

Peter looked on at the bubbling mess in the cauldron. "I'm a bloody failure at making potions, aren't I?" he asked meekly. "James usually gives up right about now and takes over. I think Slughorn knows that I really don't do anything, but doesn't say much." He sighed. "I'm pretty useless, aren't I?"

Hermione sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. If somebody had told her a year ago that she'd end up tutoring Peter Pettigrew in Potions and keeping him from blowing himself, she'd call them crazy. But here she was…

"You aren't useless." He scoffed at her. "You aren't. You're just so used to letting James and Sirius—an even Remus sometimes—take over whenever you think you can't do something, that it's become an escape attempt for you. I've watched you in class before. Whenever something gets too hard, you run to one of your friends and get them to help you before you get a chance at working out the problem yourself. I bet if you gained a little independence, you'd gain a little self-confidence too. You've got to actually try and do these things for yourself instead of letting one of your friends bully you into doing it themselves because it's quicker, or easier."

"Do you really think they bully me?" Peter asked.

Hermione stopped chopping a vanilla bean and tried to read the blank expression on his face. She would have to choose her answer carefully. "I don't think they bully you, per se," she stated slowly, watching him. "Some people are lucky to understand things immediately. It's hard slowing down when things seem that easy." _'Pot calling the kettle black, Hermione?'_ She mentally kicked her rationality to quiet down.

"Why haven't you done that then?" Peter demanded. "What makes you different from them, that you don't tell me to just sit back while you finish?"

Hermione sighed at him. "When they see you struggling to perform a spell or make a potion, they truly want to help because you're their friend, but they're boys. Which is exactly why we're different. Their way of helping is to just… take over and do it themselves. You've become so used to it that you don't stop to tell them 'No' and let them take over. On the other hand, I'm used to friends who'd be more than willing to let me take over. I had to learn when to draw my limits to preserve my sanity. Otherwise, they would have let me give them all the answers and done none of the work themselves."

"They just don't think I can do it," Peter commented sulkily. "I don't think they believe I can do anything right without their help."

It sounded like there were seven years of bitterness behind that comment and Hermione bet she could guess exactly why Peter Pettigrew joined the Death Eaters. It had probably been the perfect chance to show James that Wormtail could be a great wizard. By the time he'd been forced to hand over the Potters to You-Know-Who, he'd probably dug his own grave and had to sit in it. She'd bet almost anything on it. 'Andromache Black,' née Hermione Granger, who was coaching the rat in Potions, on the other hand, felt like banging her head against a wall for getting dragged into the situation. Instead, she told him, "Well, why don't you show them that the world doesn't begin and end with James Potter and Sirius Black by acing this exam?"

"Do you think it'll work?" Peter asked her.

"It'll be a good start."

_9.3_

"I did it!" Peter came running into the common room with a triumphant grin. James looked up from his Quidditch magazine and fixed the other Marauder with a raised eyebrow.

"What exactly did you do, Peter?" Remus asked from his normal spot in front of the fireplace.

Peter thrust a parchment in the other boy's face excitedly. "I didn't blow up the Potions classroom! Slughorn actually congratulated me on my Polyjuice!"

Sirius snickered and threw an arm around the other boy's shoulders. "He told our Wormtail that it was a perfectly passable potion and complimented him on keeping his eyebrows. Personally, I thought he was going to botch it up when he almost added the Boomslang skin in too early, but he stopped himself before ol' Sluggy could. You should have seen him. It was like he'd given birth to McGonagall's kittens, right then and there!"

"Been doing your homework then, Pete? Making your mum proud and outgrowing Prongsie and Pads there?" James joked, grinning at the other boy.

Peter had the humility to look bashful. "Well…" he trailed off.

Remus continued it for him. "When he found out that you two had landed detention with Professor McGonagall, he was able to rope Andromache into studying with him. She said she'd made Polyjuice before, so she knew what she was doing. I guess it paid off then?"

A dark look crossed Sirius's face. "What did she need Polyjuice Potion for?" he wanted to know.

Peter shrugged. "I didn't ask, she didn't tell. All she said was that she'd accidentally gotten animal hair instead of human hair and that it hadn't turned out well."

"More like insinuated she'd used animal hair instead of human hair," Remus corrected. "She didn't actually say she'd done anything."

Peter craned his head around the common room. "Where is she anyway? She took off right after Potions and I didn't get a chance to thank her."

"Probably in the library. She's been spending a lot of time doing research there. I think she's been busy working on an Ancient Runes project," Remus replied. "She refused to tell me about it, but I know it involves connecting charms to runes for protection." Sirius scoffed and Remus turned to him with an aggravated sigh. "What's your problem?" Sirius's face had progressively grown darker at the mention of his cousin.

Sirius merely scoffed once more, throwing himself down on the couch and nearly squashing Remus in the process. He spread himself out and used his mate as a footrest. "Do you think that phoney 'Dark Lord' has her creating spells for him? Or do you just think she's been forced to the menial task of brewing Polyjuice because it's one of 'Luscious' Malfoy's fantasies to use it on other Death Eaters so he can play a bit with them?"

Peter surprised them all by being the first to react. He pushed up from the couch and faced Sirius with an angry, red face. "I'm starting to get really tired of you always hinting that she's a Death Eater. Just because she's related to you doesn't mean she's bad. If you took one minute to actually give her a chance, I'd bet you'd find out she's a better person than you think. I mean, she could have really hurt you in duelling and gotten away with it—you heard Flitwick," he ignored Remus's interjection of "_Professor_ Flitwick," "when he said that there have been some really nasty accidents in the past. You're just snippy because she has the brains to not put up with some of the rubbish you spew… and because she won the duel in Charms." He turned flank and headed for the common room entrance, leaving the other three boys extremely surprised.

"I'm going to go thank her for helping me and not just taking over the potion because she thought I couldn't do it."

_10. An interlude in the dungeons_

"I need Boomslang skin."

Hermione faced Regulus in an empty hallway in the dungeons. It was almost time for curfew, but it was the only chance she'd had to pull her 'cousin' aside to talk to him.

"What for?" he responded.

"Let me rephrase the request. I need Boomslang skin, preferably without any questions asked."

He grinned and let out a bark of laughter that was eerily similar to his brother's. "Does 'no questions asked' mean I can't ask why you didn't just nick some from Slughorn when you were brewing Polyjuice Potion?"

She scoffed at him. "Honestly. Professor Slughorn knows the price of Boomslang skin and practically hordes it. I can afford the price, and am willing to pay whatever, but obtaining it without questions asked has proved to be pretty expensive."

"So you came to me."

She nodded at him, eyes sceptical. Her request would come with a price, and they both knew it. She was just waiting for him to get to it.

"Save your money. I need something else from you."

She fixed him with a glare. "Excuse me, but I'm not the type of girl who peddles in those wares."

He smirked at the innuendo he'd accidentally made. "That's good, because that isn't what I need. What I'm looking for will be harder to obtain than what you hide in your knickers. I want to talk to my brother."

She groaned loudly. "You make sexual favours sound like a positively tempting alternative."

He laughed again. "My dear cousin, I've got willing girls, so I don't need to have a half-arsed partner. No, this is more important." His smile dropped and he sighed. "There's a lot of… uncertainty going around the castle. Especially in Slytherin. They're expecting people to pick sides in the war that I'm not sure I want to pick."

She started for a moment at what he was saying and immediately silenced him with a sharp gesture. Hermione hurriedly looked around and, not seeing anybody, dragged Regulus into an empty classroom. She quickly locked the doors and placed a Privacy Charm around the room. "Are you daft?" she hissed at him once she felt they were safe. "Of all the places you could tell me this, you do it out in the open, in the dungeons, without any sort of privacy spell? Are you trying to get yourself killed? Better yet, are you trying to get _me_ killed?"

He had the decency to look chastised. "Sorry," he shrugged. Inside, Hermione nearly giggled at the sight of his pink cheeks. "This has been bothering me, and I didn't really think…"

She sighed. "That's the problem with you boys. You never really do." She siphoned the dust off of the teacher's desk in the front of the room and perched upon it once she felt it was relatively clean. "So Slytherins are being pressured into joining forces with a pure-blood supremacist party and you don't know what to do?"

He shook his head. "I know exactly what to do, but I'm not sure I can do it alone. I'm not like him—I'm not like Sirius." He threw his hands up in the air with aggravation.

Hermione motioned for him to continue. "From the start, Sirius had the advantages. He was older and he got away from Mum earlier on. He came across a group of good friends and had the courage to question whether or not all the shite Mum emitted was just that—pure, utter shite. He'd always hated the things Mum felt were important and he was finally able to get friends who would support that hatred. It probably helps that he met and instantly hated Snape and everything the greasy git stood for."

She let out a snicker. Hermione Granger could appreciate Severus Snape as an intelligent man, a brilliant Potions Master, and a war hero, but Andromache Black was the one who had to coexist with his seventeen-year-old self. When she'd previously told Lily about the prank James and Sirius had acted upon the greasy teen, the one that led her to tutoring Peter, it was more out of disgust for what they'd done to the Hufflepuffs than the actual situation.

She let Regulus continue. "Then there's me. I was the younger brother. I had to sit through Mum's tirades about how disappointed she was in Sirius. I watched how disgusted and angry they were with him, and how my own parents treated my older brother like scum. After I'd gotten to Hogwarts, I'd been around Mum too much and was too cowardly to ask the Sorting Hat to put me anywhere but Slytherin. Then, I got to watch through the years as the relationship between my brother and my parents grew worse. You saw the family tree; you saw how violently his name was blasted off the wall. By the time I actually had the courage to defy Mum, Sirius had already labelled me a Right Bastard and washed his hands of me."

He continued his tirade, now pacing along the aisles created by desks, as if, once he had started, he was unable to stop. "Then, out of the blue, Sirius doesn't even bother coming home this summer! That alone creates even more anger and diatribes from Mum, up until she publicly declares him dead to her social circle." He sighed. "Now I'm being pressured to do something I don't really think is right, and I'd like to talk to Sirius for support because he always seems to know what to do, but he's already stereotyped me into a category and refuses to talk to me. That is why I need you to speak to him for me. I know he hates you just as much as he hates me, but you at least get to see him on a daily basis. He goes out of his way to ignore me."

Hermione felt a growing urge to bang her head against a wall. Getting Sirius Black to listen to her long enough to hear his brother's request would be a challenge. Getting him to agree to speak to his brother would be near impossible. "I'll do what I can," she sighed, pushing off the desk. "However, I'm not a miracle worker. I'll be expecting good quality Boomslang skin some time this week. And with those words," she paused her dialogue to lower the wards on the classroom and head towards the door, "I don't need to hear it from Sirius or James if I lose house points for getting caught out past curfew, the stupid hypocrites. I'm headed back to Gryffindor Tower. I'll owl you if I can get Sirius to agree on seeing you. 'If' being the key word."

_11. An interlude in the common room_

Getting Sirius alone and away from the Marauders would be difficult. Regulus had successfully gotten her the Boomslang skin for her hair potion within days, but several weeks later, she had yet to approach her end of the bargain. It came as a surprise, then, when, mid-November, she came down from her bed to the common room for a book she'd forgotten downstairs and found Sirius sitting on a couch alone.

In another life, when she'd visited Grimmauld Place at the ripe age of fifteen, Hermione had known that Sirius experienced rather radical ups and downs. The times when he was at his lowest were the ones when he sequestered himself off in his rooms to be left alone. Harry had never said anything, but she'd known how much it had hurt him that his godfather would cut him out of his life. Now that she was in the past, it was a bit of a relief to know that Sirius did the same thing to his best mates. It seemed like it was currently one of those times where Sirius had needed to be away from James. She hoped that, by being in the common room, he'd at least be willing to talk to somebody. Especially when she needed to talk to him.

"Knut for your thoughts?" she asked tentatively, walking around the couch he was sitting on to face him.

He glowered back at her. "I'm not in the mood for any of your holier-than-thou speeches. Leave me alone." He slouched further down in the cushions, and Hermione had to grudgingly admire the way the fire in the fireplace cast a reddish glow off of his face and hair.

"Well, I'm not in the mood for giving speeches, so I guess we're a pair." Not quite given the invite to join him on the couch, but not forcefully removed from the room either, Hermione took a seat on the floor in front of him. At least this way, the fire at her back would make it easier to read his face, and harder for him to read hers.

They sat like this for several minutes, him brooding and glaring above her head into the fire and her cross-legged on the ground, elbows on her knees and head in her hands.

He was the first to break the silence. "Why do you care?" he wanted to know.

"I care about a lot of things. Revising for my NEWTs, the treatment of first years, house elf rights. How utterly ridiculous my hair is. You're going to have to be more specific than that," was her response.

"Your hair isn't that ridiculous. My cousin, Narcissa, has ridiculous hair. In comparison, yours is normal."

This surprised a laugh out of her. "You're right. I bet she and that pig she's marrying will have snot-nosed, pointy-chinned, ferrets together. I bet their son will grease back his hair, and when the receding hairline hits him at around thirty-five, it'll be a world-wide catastrophe." Sirius grudgingly flashed a grin at her. "Otherwise, I find perfectly-coifed sausage curls utterly preposterous and would willingly shave them off if I weren't so disinclined to go bald."

"I'm sure you could charm them somehow?" he offered.

She scoffed. "I have better things to do with my time than to research and upkeep beauty spells. I'm lucky my socks match every day."

A silence fell over the room. Awkwardly, Hermione inspected the carpet in front of her, waiting for Sirius to be the one to speak first. It was easier to respond than to incite him. "Why did you care about helping Pete with his potions assignment?" Sirius eventually asked.

"Because he asked me to. Because he was desperate. Because nobody else would have and he'd have been stuck in detention for a month, miserable because he would have felt like a failure," came her honest answer. "But if you really want to know, he'd already started shuffling his textbooks closer to me before I was able to tell him no."

"That's all? You helped him because he asked you to?"

How could she possibly explain the anguish she had felt over watching Neville struggle through Snape's Potions class for five years? That Peter's helplessness in Potions reminded her of the Longbottom boy who wasn't due to be born until 1980? "I have a thing for assisting people that need the encouragement and don't have the means of helping themselves."

"Then when we were duelling in Flitwick's class—I'm not going to call him 'Professor Flitwick,' so close your mouth; I'm not Peter—how come you didn't bother throwing any real spells at me until the end? I've watched you and I know you're highly competent with your wand work. And I know you've invented some creative stuff. I've seen you cast a few original spells when you think nobody's looking. You could have easily overpowered me, but you didn't until you had to."

Hermione pursed her lips to the side as she thought of a way to answer this question. "I guess I'd have to say I was trying to control myself. I…" she trailed off, again not quite sure how much she'd be able to tell him. She didn't want to bring up any details about the war she aimed to prevent.

"'I…'?" Sirius prompted, waiting for her to continue.

"You won't let this one drop?" she pleaded.

He shot her a defiant grin. It was decidedly better than his sneers. She had to stop a little bit of herself from swooning. The fact that she'd even considered swooning over his grin made her want to kick herself.

"I've gotten into a few situations where there may or may not have been duelling restricted to a classroom setting," she finally admitted. She focused her attention back to the carpet. "After being in those situations, I wasn't quite sure if I could trust myself in a controlled duelling situation. While we were fighting, it was easier to build my way up first and see if any of those methods would work." Thinking back on the situation, she blushed hard and hoped having her back to the fire would shadow her face so he wouldn't see it. "The _Protego Horribilis_ was an accident, but you threatened my hair. I also didn't mean to turn you into stone. It sort of slipped out. However, I feel I'm fully justified in casting the knee-reversal hex. Considering you tried to turn me into a crater, I feel it put us back onto equal ground."

"What kind of situations have you gotten into that required real duelling?" he asked. He sounded slightly affronted.

"Ones in which traditional bowing before a duel would make my head an open target." He waited for her to elaborate, an action that she refused. She knew she would incense him more by being vague, but he was lucky to have gotten that much out of her.

Sirius abruptly changed the line of questioning. "Then, when you first met me, why did you defend the Death Eaters if you aren't one of them, like Peter swears?"

"Peter stood up to you on that?" She grinned, pleased that the timid Marauder had stood up to his friends on her behalf, while ignoring the underlying insinuation that Sirius thought she was the scum of the earth. "Good for him. It's about time he actually creates his own shadow instead of hiding behind yours or James's."

"That doesn't answer the question," he responded dryly.

"Well, my answer is that I wasn't defending Death Eaters. The day I defend what they're doing is the day I drop Transfigurations for Divination." Sirius smirked at the vehemence in her voice. "What I was arguing is the fact that you didn't even give a bunch of eleven-year-olds a chance before you labelled them as future Death Eaters. You perpetuated the stereotype that 'All Slytherins are evil' and didn't stop to think that they might turn out different. I mean," she paused her tirade and found her opening, "I spent quite a bit of time living with your brother this summer. Whatever vile, evil person you think he is, I disagree altogether. You think that, because he never openly fought with your mother on her wretched beliefs the way you did, he agrees with her. I bet you also think that because he never tried to defy her wishes, he'll become just like her."

Hermione sat up straight and her eyes burned with a bright fever. Sirius found himself too entranced to try and fight with her on what she was saying. "Your brother watched what happened between you and your mother and realised that he'd never have the courage to defy her the way you did. It's the same way he never had the courage to ask the Sorting Hat to put him in Gryffindor, with you. He's not the type of person to start a revolution, but if he finds a strong leader, he'd be an excellent follower. He wants to reconcile with you, he needs you to be an older brother for him, but he sees how much you hate the image of what you think he's become and it just pushes him in the opposite direction."

She stopped herself short, and the only sound in the common room was the crackling of the fire. The look in Sirius's eyes was unreadable, and Hermione found herself shrinking back within herself, emotionally drained.

"You should try talking to him, Sirius. He's being pushed into a direction he doesn't really want to go into, and he doesn't have the courage to dig his feet in and fight it. If you don't do anything else, then at least give him a reason not to be a Death Eater." She wearily got up off the floor and walked over to where the book she'd come down for sat on an end table. _Hogwarts: A History_ would fix everything.

A hand settled down on her wrist and she looked up, surprised, into Sirius's eyes. She hadn't even heard him get off of the couch.

"Why do you care?" he asked, the reverberation sounding husky to hear ears.

"Because." Her voice cracked. Images of dead bodies, too many dead bodies, the smouldering Ministry of Magic after the Muggles destroyed it, the day Hogwarts was officially closed, but not before the library had burnt down, the feel of her parents' wedding bands in her hand, and bright blue eyes under a mop of ginger hair swirled around in her head. "Too many people are going to end up falling in this war. If I can keep one more from plummeting, especially a person I know to be good, I'll do whatever I can." She tugged at her wrist and he let go without hesitation. She shakily made her way back to her room, where she closed her bed curtains, cast a Silencing Charm, and tried her best to ignore the anguish, confusion, and loss she felt inside.

_12. An interlude in the Great Hall_

It was a week later when Hermione got an anonymous owl at breakfast. "Thanks. For being Gryffindor, and saving souls, and performing other fluffy good deeds, and stuff," it read. She gazed over to the Slytherin table, over to where Regulus was making a point of not looking at her. Chuckling to herself, Hermione slipped the note in her pocket. Several seats down the table, Sirius watched her with a confused look on his face.

_13. An interlude in potions_

It was seventh year, N.E.W.T.s level Potions, and she was somehow stuck in a group with Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. Professor Slughorn had made it astonishingly clear that the potion ingredients for this particular recipe were very expensive and extremely rare, yet Hermione had hoped she would be allowed to pick her own group. Her rationality reminded her that she could have been much worse off, and with this thought, she spared a glance at a table across the room. Professor Slughorn was either a masochist, or completely oblivious to the state of inter-House affairs, because Lily was miserably mediating an escalating argument between James and Snape at her worktable.

'_Maybe not completely oblivious,'_ she analysed from within. '_Being completely oblivious would be sticking Severus Snape in a group with Sirius. There wouldn't be enough left of the classroom to fit in a cookie tin to send back to loved ones.'_

Hermione turned back to her own table where the various ingredients were neatly piled on different parts of the table. A small cauldron merrily gurgled over a flame to the side. On a stool, to the opposite side of the table, Peter nervously watched the cauldron. She had been very clear in her instructions to her group members. "Peter's job," she had briskly informed them as she gathered the frozen Ashwinder eggs, "Is to sit on that stool and to keep an eye open that the potion does not explode. You can go ahead and sit on your hands, if you don't mind." He hadn't moved his hands out from under his bum thus far.

"And my job, oh Benign Dictator and Czarina of the Potions Classroom?" Sirius asked mockingly. His demeanour screamed at how uncomfortable he was with the situation. Hermione knew that he wasn't used to taking instructions from other people, and that he probably wasn't sure if he liked taking instructions from _her_, so she was willing to bet that he felt a bit irked that she'd taken charge and started micromanaging as the group project leader. They might be able to coexist with one another, but he was a natural leader and wasn't used to sharing the limelight. This Potions class would be a lesson in 'Tough Luck' for Sirius Black, she mused.

"Don't take that tone with me." She winced as several ounces of dragon heart squished under her pestle. "I've found that Peter works best under situations without pressure. The fact that Amortentia is extremely volatile until it is finished, however, is a very pressure-filled situation." She set her mortar and pestle down. "However, if you want to make yourself useful, you can grind the Hippogriff talon. Make sure to crush it in a—"

"Diagonal pattern towards myself, starting on the right, until it's been rendered a fine powder? With a pestle preferably made from unrefined sapphire, though amber or carnelian works too?" Sirius asked with a deadpan. He'd already taken a hold of the talon and had pulled out a pestle that she was irked to find was a large hunk of unrefined sapphire. Stupid, privileged pillock. Her patience was increasingly rubbing thin, lately. She'd been in the past for a handful of months, yet hadn't done anything useful except make her way to the top of each class. Rationally, she reminded herself that she was supposed to be changing the future, but the irrationality of, 'There's a Transfiguration test tomorrow!' usually prevailed.

Silence fell over their work area as Sirius and Hermione worked in tandem. She was grudgingly surprised at how well the two functioned, though she would never admit to it out loud. After years of partnering with Harry, Ron, or Neville, none of which were particularly gifted with Potions, it was odd not telling somebody what to do, and when to do it. Whenever the next stage in the potion came up and she opened her mouth to give Sirius instructions, though, he was already performing the correct action. The ingredients she wasn't preparing, he was. It was weird, working with somebody who had half an ounce of sense as to what he was doing.

"Can you stir while I add the pomegranate seeds?" Sirius asked, breaking her from her reverie of slicing apart the fluxweed. All that was left was adding six pomegranate seeds individually while stirring in a counter-clockwise formation, then slipping in a combination of fluxweed and nexes hair. If they had brewed it correctly, the potion would soon be producing its characteristic swirls of smoke with a mother-of-pearl sheen. If they hadn't brewed it correctly, there would be a quick moment of excruciating pain before slipping into blissful silence.

Hermione picked up the ladle and slowly stirred through the pearly-navy liquid in the cauldron. Sirius idled next to her to bend over the cauldron as well. A faint sense of self-awareness grew over her as she began to stir; Sirius was close enough that she could feel his chest exhaling and hear the faint counting as he dropped each pomegranate seed into the brew.

"Potion going all right there, Pete?" Sirius asked, taking a step back when his task was over. Hermione kept stirring, but let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. This nervousness due to proximity, this anxiety, where in the dickens had it come from? She scowled into the cauldron.

"No explosion yet!" the other boy merrily replied to his mate's question.

"Keep up the good work then, chap!" Sirius responded. He'd already picked up the pestle of fluxweed slices and added the nexes hair to it. "Moment of truth?" he asked her.

She shrugged, not looking up from her task. "Feel free to do the honours. Rest assured that if you make this potion explode, it'll be my face that takes the brunt of the damage. However, I think I'm short enough that you will not be unscathed."

"I'll do what I can to take that into account. Wouldn't want to destroy such a fine masterpiece. And I suppose I'd get shite for anything that happens to you, too." Carefully, he slipped the contents of the mortar into the potion. Hermione stirred three more times, just until the pearly navy of the potion melted into a mother-of-pearl sheen. She then carefully slipped the ladle out of the potion and half-smiled at the swirls of smoke that emitted from the cauldron.

Peter grinned at her. "It didn't blow up," he commented cheekily. He leaned over and took a whiff of the potion. "Fresh rain, spiced pumpkin, and campfire smoke," he added sheepishly. Piqued, Sirius leaned over to take a whiff as well.

"Rest assured, if it had exploded, it wouldn't have been my fault," she commented idly. She focused her attention on Sirius from the corner of her eye, waiting for him to refute her claim. She, Hermione Jean Granger, epitome of calm maturity, had sunk to a level of peevishness of trying to get a rise out of Sirius. It was a new low.

The rise she wanted never came. "I said," she reiterated, "that if the potion had exploded, I would have been free from blame." Still nothing. "And considering Peter wasn't adding ingredients, and I wouldn't be to blame, only one person could have been at fault." She turned to face him head-on. "Are you even listening to me?"

He wasn't. Sirius stood over the potion, inhaling its fumes deeply. A strong look of concentration darkened his face as his eyebrows furrowed. Hermione watched the emotion flitter across his face, slowly transforming from an appearance of confusion, to one of extreme distaste.

"I see our Mr. Black has caught the scent of a finely-brewed Amortentia." Hermione turned and saw that Professor Slughorn had approached their table from behind. "Something not to your liking, Mr. Black?"

Sirius looked up from the potion. He spared a glare for Hermione, one she immediately and indignantly wanted to refute, and turned away with a scowl on his face. "Everything's just fan-fucking-tastic," he muttered under his breath. Beside her, the Potions professor chuckled.

"And how about you, Miss Black? Have you gotten to smell the potion yet?"

Hermione rolled her eyes at her Potions partner. "No, Professor, I haven't smelled my potion yet," she responded, bending over the brew. "But I'm familiar with its odour. Like parchment, and freshly cut grass, and—" she paused mid-sentence. She sniffed the brew. She sniffed it a second time. Parchment, freshly cut grass, and a slightly salty, slightly spicy scent she equated with Quidditch, summers at the Burrow, and Ron. That's what Amortentia was supposed to smell like for her. Then how come it smelled like parchment, freshly cut grass, a quasi-familiar memory of expensive spice mixed with wet dog, and engine motor oil? She pulled back from the potion with growing horror and fixed Slughorn with a stupefied, accusing look.

"Something wrong, my dear?" he asked. The knowing grin on his face was unsettling.

However, she was saved from answering this question. "Thank you for mentioning it, Professor," Kamalia Avery muttered calmly from a neighbouring table. The blond was bent over her own cauldron of mother-of-pearl potion and her jaw was clenched. "It means you won't mind that I'm excusing myself from Potions. I just realised I have to send out an urgent owl."

"Is everything all right, Miss Avery?" the potions professor asked.

Kamalia made her way to leave the classroom. "It depends. If I find out that Pyotr still smells like that slut's cheap perfume, there might be mass bloodshed." She made a flourishing exit from the vicinity.

Motor oil and wet dog. Hermione dazedly turned to see how Lily was faring in her group and had a bit of a start. The redhead, unhappily situated between a fuming James and Snape, wore the same, ghastly expression that adorned Hermione's visage. Hermione was also keen to note that Lily seemed a little too careful to avoid James's attention. _'Another revelation,'_ her thoughts muttered.

"A very fortuitous day in Potions, don't you think?" Professor Slughorn asked from her side. The triumphant grin on his face did not bode well. From within, her thoughts connected the dots and cursed in a very un-Hermione way. Slughorn was neither a masochist nor was he completely oblivious, as she had originally assumed. It was much worse. He was just as meddling as Professor Dumbledore.

_14.1 A second interlude in the common room_

Remus was quietly sitting in his favourite armchair in the Gryffindor common room, pleasure-reading from a thick book. It was a quiet Saturday morning and he was taking advantage over the fact that James and Sirius were both out and about.

Peter was not enjoying his Saturday as much as Remus was. His arms were weighed down with Potions texts, his Potions kit, a pewter cauldron, and stacks of parchment and ink. He peevishly walked over to where Remus sat and dumped all of the contents down on the coffee table. The books let out a satisfying thump, the parchment fanned out, the inkbottle wobbled precariously, and the cauldron bounced and clattered to the floor. Remus mentally sighed, placed his finger where he'd left off in the text, and calmly looked up to Peter.

"Yes?"

Peter scowled. "I've spent all morning looking for Sirius. We have a Potions assignment due on Monday and he was supposed to meet up with me to work on it. Have you seen him? He didn't get detention again, did he? Because I'll throttle him if he did."

Remus's mouth twitched slightly. "Last I heard he was heading to meet up with a girl by the lake. He asked me if he'd put on too much cologne. He didn't like my answer. I told him not to ask me questions if he didn't want the truth. I now get to look forward to some sort of retribution at a later time this week," he replied.

Peter muttered darkly under his breath. "Isn't that just typical of him? A Potions test on Monday, he agreed to meet me for a study session, and he goes and runs off to chat up some bird. I mean, if he makes one mistake, that's my and Andromache's grades he's affecting." Peter glumly kicked at the edge of the table and snorted angrily. "Have you at least seen Andromache? I might as well study with her, if Sirius is going to go running off for field trips."

Remus smiled slowly. "She's at the lake, meeting up with a boy."

It took several moments for the realization to dawn upon Peter. "Oh." He plopped down next to Remus in defeat.

Remus nodded. "Yeah."

They sat like that, silently, for several minutes.

"Are they dating?" Peter asked.

"Who are you asking?" Remus sagely queried. "If you're asking them, the answer is a vehement, 'No.' In fact, as I recall, Andromache stormed out of here, muttering something about teaching 'poncy jerks' a 'proper lesson.' She wasn't happy, and she was clutching her wand pretty tightly. Romance was probably the last thing on her mind."

"And if I'm not asking them?" Peter wanted to know.

"If you're not asking _them_ if they're dating, and you're asking pretty much everybody else in this school, up to, and including, Professor Slughorn, then the answer is, 'Yes.' However, both Sirius and Andromache are too blind to see something right in front of their faces. Funny, that. Two of the smartest people in our year, absolutely blind to their own reality. However, Sirius is going about it like a grade school bully. He's purposely trying to incite his cousin because he has a little too much fun playing off her anger. He likes to see how far he can push her." He regarded the dark look on Peter's face. "What's wrong?"

Peter crossed his arms over his chest. "If there's a real break-up to their imaginary dating, Potions will be a nightmare for the rest of the year." He sighed. "I just got dragged back into possibly failing that stupid class, and this time it isn't even my fault."

Remus shrugged. "Look at it this way, Peter. It can't be worse than being in a group with James and Snape."

_14.2_

"You are such an absolute git!" Hermione was shaking in anger at the boy who lounged on a rock by the lake. She had to fight the urge to reach for her wand and hex him to pieces. Instead, she tried her best to fuel her anger through her words. Sirius's serenely, smiling face, however, only added to her rage. "I cannot believe how big of an over-grown, pompous bully you are!"

"I have to congratulate you for the utter feeling behind the insults, but none of them are anything I haven't heard before." He stretched across his rock and struck a pose that would have left a lesser girl drooling at his feet. Instead, it seemed to incite her more.

"How dare you?" Her clenching hands tugged her hair out of her face so she could yell at him with a clear view. "Just because you're older than them, you seem to treat first-years like guinea pigs. That poor girl ended up in the Infirmary because you don't have the common decency to test prototype spells on somebody who knows what they're getting themselves into!"

Sirius yawned at her. "We signed a contract. She was getting paid two galleons to take it like a man, so to say. I've already apologized, I've been given a week's detention, and McGonagall has continued to bemoan at how I'll never make anything of myself. Does this mean I have to sit through you lecturing me, too? Because I'm supposed to meet up with Pete for a Potions review."

She scoffed at him scathingly. "And oh boy, don't you look like you're bouncing about to brew. I've never seen a man more desperate to get his hands on a cauldron."

He grinned in response. "I'll have you know, this level of procrastination is a fine art, one that takes years to refine." He stretched and struck a second pose, hoping to get a better response out of her. "However, I'd be willing to compromise with a practical lesson, just you and me. It'll be a bit of Potions role-playing. You can be the mortar and I'll be the pestle, so let's grind."

Hermione was surprised at the guffaw that exited her mouth. Talking to Sirius Black was like riding an emotional roller coaster: one minute, she was seething in anger, and the next, the incredulous responses were ripped right out of her. Her anger momentarily drained for horrified scepticism. "Please tell me those cheesy lines don't actually work. The expectations I hold for my gender are bad enough already; I don't think they can withstand a strike like that."

He sighed dramatically. "If it's not my charming wit or my excellent pick-up lines, it's my body. I can barely keep them off of me. Would you care for a closer inspection?"

She rolled her eyes at his offer. "If it's all the same, I'm happy where I am. As it is, you smell like you fell into a vat of cheap cologne to cover up an _eau de _wet dog."

"It seems like we're delving into the five senses instead!" He eagerly sat up from his position with a triumphant look. "We've discovered that I'm already enticing your auditory, olfactory, and vision senses, but are there any chances of 'touch' or 'taste' to finish it off?" He waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively and Hermione could tell that he was enjoying the rise he got out of her. She threw her hands up in the air, hoping the action would take away from her reddening face.

"You are absolutely incorrigible. I'm supposed to be livid with you. You're obnoxious and egotistical, you have no regard for other people or beings, you're terrible to your friends unless you want something from them, and you seem to think that, because I'm a girl, I'll willingly throw myself at your feet and offer you my body. How in the world does anybody ever find you charming?"

"I told you. They end up adoring me for my body." Sirius let out a dramatic sigh. Hermione's eye twitched in irritation.

"I'm beginning to think it was easier when you hated me. At least that way, I didn't have to suffer through the terrible innuendo. Is there any way we can go back to that sort of relationship?"

"Funny. James used to ask the same thing."

"You didn't respect his wishes, did you?"

Sirius's bark of laughter rang out across the lake. "Of course not. Now, when he isn't pining after Evans, he's lusting after me. It's hard not to encourage the poor bloke. That lusty dog is constantly accosting me, willing me to give in. Some of the tales I could tell…"

Hermione gave up trying to argue with him. The twitch in her eye was almost as aggravating as he was, and the circular arguments were causing a headache. "I'm going back up to the common room. I'm afraid if I remain down here much longer, you'll see it as encouragement, and I really don't want to hear about your secret trysts. If I see Peter, I'll make sure to let him know that you're down here, considering a possible relationship with James, shall I? That way, when we all fail on Monday, he'll at least have an interesting story to tell Professor Slughorn." She turned promptly and stormed back up towards the castle, her curls merrily bouncing with each step.

"No need to sound so jealous, darling. I'm sure I can pencil you in somewhere," he yelled after her retreating figure. She pretended to ignore him.

_15. An interlude in deep thought_

It was late. She wasn't quite sure exactly what time it was, except that curfew had been what seemed like hours ago. If she were caught now, no doubt it would mean a week of detention and a severe docking of house points from Gryffindor. Chances were, after the talk she'd had in November with Sirius, that the Marauders wouldn't say anything to her about it the way they would have otherwise. However, she didn't want to push her luck. Sirius had been more quiet and thoughtful around her, if he wasn't pushing out horrendous innuendos, and she wasn't sure if she liked it or not. The look on his face was a sort of intense calculation that scared, yet thrilled, her. It was a sort of thrill that she didn't feel she was allowed to have, a pleasure-thrill, and her job in the past wasn't supposed to be about pleasure.

She brooded as she plodded along the dark corridor, the click of her shoes echoing eerily on the flagstones that prevailed in the dark. She had left behind the image of Andromache Black for the evening. She needed some time to be Hermione Granger and to remind herself as to why she was in the past. It was mentally and physically exhausting, playing the perfect, pessimistic brat. Although Andromeda had helped to instil the manners and etiquette of a pure-blood, the older woman hadn't informed her of how difficult it would be to maintain the aristocratic charade. So far, Hermione had been able to play the role almost flawlessly in the right company. It was easy to boss Regulus around because he expected it, or to look down her nose at Severus Snape because he really was a great, hulking jerk. However, fate had a way of making things difficult for her…

Because the Sorting Hat had thrown her back into Gryffindor, she'd once again come across a difficult turn of fate. How easy it would have been to play her assigned role if she were in Slytherin, surrounded by the same people who naturally acted the role of a bigoted prat. Instead, sitting in Gryffindor, Hermione increasingly found herself slipping up amongst her peers, absent-mindedly switching between Andromache's standoffishness to her natural, Hermione-ish idealisms. Much longer and somebody would begin to notice the fluctuation in her character, and the Kneazle would be out of the bag. She was pretty sure that Lily and Remus had noticed the changes in her character; the 'Andromache' she had created in her mind remained cold and aloof and didn't involve herself in the affairs of others. Helping Peter with his Potions assignment, or spending hours in the library, trying to incorporate ancient runes and time spells to make the Time-Turner more potent, were entirely too Hermione-ish to fit the characterization she'd mapped out. They were two traits she had immense difficulty subduing—helping those in need and extinguishing her forerunning desire for academic achievement.

Sirius, who was no longer giving her a reason to loathe his guts, didn't help either. He'd turned into a curious, unwanted distraction. An enigmatic, charming, and utterly infuriating distraction. Hermione found it increasingly difficult to not get attached to the charismatic teen. It was one thing when the two were constantly at wand point, snarling into each other's face. It was easy for her to hate him for his bigoted prejudice. It was another when he actually treated her, and teased her, like a female. Hermione wasn't used to being regarded like a girl. She found that it threw her concentration and made it even harder to complete the tasks she had set in front of her. She wasn't in the past to ogle a man who would eventually be twenty years her senior; she was there to make sure he lived that long, preferably without another visit to Azkaban.

Even worse was the fact that, by interacting on a day-to-day basis with the Marauders, she'd become entirely too attached to the people in that time period. She'd been in the past for over half a year now and what had she accomplished? She was pretty sure that neither Peter nor Regulus would turn to the Death Eaters, but she was no closer to preventing the fall of the wizarding world in the future. Snape would still overhear the prophecy regarding the Potters and baby Harry Potter would still turn out to be the Boy-Who-Lived in the aftermath of his parents' deaths.

However, her courage constantly seemed to fail her. For being sorted into Gryffindor—twice—she couldn't force herself to do the deed she'd come to the past to perform. It was always on the tip of her tongue, to inform Professor Dumbledore about the Horcruxes, but a nagging portion in her brain kept playing "what if" scenarios. She also couldn't overcome the guilt she felt at breaking the biggest rule of time travel: not to change the future. She'd read multiple accounts on how altering time could destroy the future, and her irksome conscience wouldn't quiet down about how the future could possibly be made worse. More importantly, the desire to remain in the past was growing, fighting against her need to complete her set tasks.

What she really needed right now, a voice deep down in her psyche whispered amongst the silent 'clip-clap' of her shoes against the floor, was some solitude. If only for a few minutes, Hermione needed the quiet seclusion of a private place to collect herself, to remind herself why she'd gone to the past and what changes she wanted to make, and to relieve some of the pressure off her shoulders. A muted corner in some distant hallway at Hogwarts where she could have a good, frustrated cry and just be Hermione Granger for a change, and not Andromache Black.

She stopped herself short for a moment, gazing at a portrait on the wall. It was now the third time she'd passed this painting, her body absent-mindedly turning circles as her head did the same. Despite the time of night—morning, really—Barnabas the Barmy continued to train his trolls for the ballet. And opposite the painting, a door that hadn't been there previously clicked open. A slight draft of air pulled her forward and Hermione let out an unconscious sigh of relief. The Room of Requirement had felt what she needed and had come to rescue her.

_16. Another interlude in deep thought_

Unlike Hermione's listless wandering through the hallways, Sirius Black knew exactly what he needed. If he had to listen to James's story about the Hogsmeade visit with Lily Evans one more time, well, _he_ wasn't going to puke, but he'd probably hex somebody to do it for him. Preferably on James's pillow. Even better if James was using it at the time.

Sirius adored James like a "heterosexual life-mate." They'd even boisterously announced their engagement third year (and received two weeks detention for the show they'd put on during dinner, including overturning the Slytherin table; it was one of his favourite highlights from that year) and since then, the two had been joined at the hip. Nevertheless, like any good partner and best mate, Sirius had quickly come to the conclusion that too much of a good thing eventually turned him towards a bad temper. Peter and James referred to it as "Sirius's time of the month," and Remus referred to it as "Milord's quiet brooding." Sirius knew when to make excuses and find solitude away from the Marauders—and James, for that matter—for a bit, the same way the Marauders knew not to bother their friend when Sirius needed his space. Intruding too soon could force Sirius to lash out, regardless of the person. It was part of the volatile Black temper and Sirius readily blamed inbreeding. It gave him another reason to hate his family

This was an additional reason as to why his cousin threw him off: he hadn't lashed out at Andromache when she approached him in the common room back in November. She'd answered his questions truthfully, made him laugh, and caused the reconciliation he'd had with his brother. She'd made him laugh. During a Milord's Private Brooding moment, nonetheless! He'd been utterly surprised when she'd gotten so worked up over his brother, too. Sirius Black did not do emotional girls and their tears usually reduced him to laughter, but watching Andromache get into an emotional tizzy over Regulus made a primordial part of Sirius Black go absolutely nuts. And, deep inside, a bit of himself wanted to destroy the traitorous part of his mind that had gotten so irrationally angry at the thing causing her anguish.

But she'd been upset for his brother.

Morganna's tits, he hoped she wasn't romantically attached to Regulus.

He also wanted to punch himself for thinking like that. However, he couldn't help it. Since that incident in the common room, he'd been watching her, taking her in, and finding himself pulled in by her personality. She would have moments where she'd try to play the perfect, pure-blood princess. However, she'd have moments were she would forget who she was supposed to be and her attitude would melt, leading to a different person underneath. It was almost like she was two completely separate people, one standoffish and unapproachable, the other openly honest, friendly, helpful, and utterly opinionated, especially when concerning house elf treatment.

That day in Potions also didn't help. He didn't know what he'd been expecting to smell from the Amortentia, but it wasn't the hint of ink, orange, and lily of the valley he'd gotten. Sirius had known immediately where the combination of the scents came from and he hadn't been happy with Slughorn's meddling.

Sirius groaned. He was actually contemplating the psyche and scent of a girl he hadn't even liked until recently. Normally, he could drop a few pick-up lines and she'd be his for the week. The pick-up lines had been brushed aside, however, and he was reduced to ogling her like a creep while trying to work out her thought process. He was getting in too deep. He was Sirius Black, Bachelor Extraordinaire, not Sappy, Love-Sick Fool. James already occupied that spot.

Sirius stopped in front of his destination. Behind him, the ballet-dancing trolls continued to pirouette. Yet the door in front of him did not change. Was somebody else already occupying the room? He reached forward and slowly let himself into the darkness beyond.

_17. An interlude in the Room of Requirement_

Hermione jumped at the sound of the door closing. She'd been sitting in the window seat next to a conjured windowpane, gazing up at the half-moon. She hadn't realised someone had let themselves into the room until the door closed behind them. She cleared her throat. "I'm sorry, but I'm kind of using the room right now," she called out.

"Then I think you're here for the same reason I am," came a familiar male voice. Hermione froze, recognizing Sirius Black.

'Oh Merlin. He's going to recognize me from my voice, or my robes, or something, and then he'll know I'm supposed to be his cousin! I can't afford to be exposed,' she panicked. Of all the worries she had about returning to the past, being discovered was the biggest. If the Ministry of Magic found out she'd broken many of the rules involved with a Time-Turner, they would have a May Day persecuting her. However, it was her personal relationships she feared for the most. Many people would never forgive her if they found out that she'd taken it upon herself to play with their futures. _Sirius_ would never forgive her if he found out she'd taken it upon herself to play with his future.

'_Relax. Disguise your voice a bit. You're wearing casual robes so he won't even know you're supposed to be a student,' _the rational portion of her brain shot back. _'If you lose your mind over this, you'll become a suspicious target.'_

"The room. It didn't change when I was walking by it, so I just figured you might be using it for the same reason I am. Did you come here to think?" Sirius asked, approaching the window seat and sitting down at the other end.

"I needed somewhere to just be myself for a few minutes," Hermione replied truthfully, lowering her voice a few pitches. "Somewhere where nobody expected me to be something I'm not."

"Me too," he responded. "I'm afraid that, although you had prior claim, I have little intention of leaving. We can either share or you can go." He knew he was being a brat. He didn't care.

Their eyes locked and he felt something familiar from behind her brown ones, yet he couldn't place his finger upon it. Her face broke into a reluctant grin and she nodded, her unfortunate, brown hair falling into her face.

They sat like that in companionable silence, staring up at the night sky for what seemed like hours. Hermione once again lost herself in her conflicting thoughts and almost forgot Sirius was there at all. He, however, had not forgotten the girl he shared the room with, and his thoughts were mostly focused on her while hers were staging a war.

Something about the girl was eerily familiar. He was trying to place where he'd seen her before, but he couldn't quite recall somebody with hair that had that much personality. He shifted in the seat and cleared his throat loudly. This, unfortunately, started a chain reaction. Hermione had forgotten she was sharing the room. As he shifted in the seat, the movement caused her to violently jump from her spot in surprise. She lost her balance and could feel the losing battle with gravity as she tilted to the floor.

"Merlin's knickers, I'm sorry!" he cried, springing up to prevent her total collapse. His momentum flung him too far and she ended up falling to the floor with him on top. Both groaned, Hermione sounding crushed from underneath Sirius. They both took several moments to recollect their bearings before taking in their new surroundings. A tense silence permeated through the room. Sirius noted that he was successfully pinning a strange female against the floor and Hermione's brain commented that Sirius Black was heavy.

Their bodies locked in place for several startled seconds: Sirius's torso resting atop hers and the silver moonlight from the window serving as their only illumination. He gazed down in fascinated shock and horror as her face reflected a similar look. Without any warning, she burst into a laughter that echoed through the room.

"You…" She laughed, ignoring the fact that he still pinned her to the ground with a look of horror on his face. "You should have seen… your expression!" Her laughter quickly turned hysterical as her brain shut down and panicked. She could feel the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. Hermione gripped at his wrists on both sides of her head to try and control herself. It didn't work. "Your eyes went all buggy when you realised, 'Oh no! Going too far!' and then you just… vaulted through the air! Prince in shining armour!"

Her laughter was contagious. It was hard not to follow suit. Sirius found himself pulled into a light chuckle, then laughter, and finally fell into a deep, belly chortle. Forgetting that he did not know the hysterical witch underneath him, his body's natural response was to gather her up in his arms as he laughed, burying his head where her shoulder met her neck to try and subdue his hilarity. They continued like this for several moments, her arms clenched about his neck as tears of laughter dribbled down her cheeks and his arms wrapped around her waist, trying to regain control over his body.

Slowly, the laughter died from their bodies and Hermione's brain began to work again, observing the precarious situation she was in. She was pinned underneath the body of her best friend's godfather, twenty-two years in the past, who would die in nineteen years, after spending twelve in Azkaban for a murder he didn't commit. This was wrong. She shouldn't be in a room with him, she shouldn't be bonding with him, and she shouldn't be connecting his scent to the one she'd gotten off of the Amortentia. For some reason, though, she couldn't make herself care.

Sirius pulled his head away from her shoulder but did not make to let her go. That was all right in her book, as she was comfortable the way she was.

"Thank you," he told her, voice raspy from laughter and doing terrible things to her legs, right behind the kneecaps, let alone other places. "I haven't had a laugh like that in years. Not over something so innocent or stupid. Is there a possibility that I might be able to offer an incentive to not let this story spread around the school? I have a reputation to uphold."

She grinned up at him and absent-mindedly brushed some of his hair away from his eyes. She rather liked his eyes. "A reputation as the failed King of the Grasshoppers?" she asked cheekily. Her amusement bubbled forth into more laughter as she fell back into the hilarity of the situation.

Sirius had meant to silence her amusement. He wasn't sure how he'd meant to accomplish this task, but his body acted separately from his brain in the quickest, most instinctual route of suppression. His lips slammed down on hers, muffling her hilarity. She stopped laughing immediately and froze. The faint scent of cologne and wet dog began to grow until it was almost unbearable. Sirius, on the other hand, was so caught up in the moment that he didn't connect the familiar wafts of lily of the valley and orange coming from her.

There, on the floor of the Room of Requirement, illuminated by fake moonlight, Sirius Black snogged an unfamiliar, yet recognizable, girl and everything was okay. Okay, at least, for himself.

_18. Part of a plea to Albus Dumbledore, signed anonymously:_

_Please do not think I weigh this decision lightly. I have always prided myself for having an extremely rational mind and I know what some of the repercussions to changing time might be. However, in light of the circumstances, I strongly believe that any changes to the time line cannot make the future worse than it already is. I stress this belief heavily, with both my own and others' experiences to support it. It was Professor McGonagall who left me a device that allowed time travel, instructing me to use it as I saw fit. The same Professor McGonagall that I watched get hexed by one of her former students in the second Final Battle. She spent her last months suffering from a painful, degenerative curse that eventually brought about her death. I'd also like to make note of "second" Final Battle. When the Dark Lord Voldemort is defeated the first time, he has placed Horcruxes about to guarantee that he returns to life._

_I would also like to mention the emphasis on the plural form of "Horcruxes." By the time the second Final Battle arrives, You-Know-Who's soul has been split into seven official pieces, eight unofficial pieces. I shall list for you later in this letter where the pieces will eventually end up and rely on you to destroy them before Sybil Trelawney approaches you for a job offer. If you wait to defeat You-Know-Who until after this interview, all hope will be lost. You will have condemned witches, wizards, Muggles, and magical brethren to live in a world of pain, suffering, murder, and war. The wizarding world will all but be destroyed._

_Please hear my pleas as one of the last remaining members of the Order of the Phoenix: destroy You-Know-Who before he destroys the world._

"I…" Lily Evans trailed off, facing the Marauders with an odd look on her face. "Have… any of you seen Andromache? Only…" she paused, the worry showing on her face. "All of her things have gone missing from the dorm. Even her trunk is gone."

"She left." Four pairs of eyes turned to Sirius Black, who gazed down dispassionately at a letter in his hand. "Something about saving the world single-handedly." Coldly, he walked past the group. They jumped as he violently kicked at an end table, sending it flying through the room. He made his way to the portrait hole. Sirius walked out of the common room and slammed the portrait shut, the Fat Lady's screams of protests calling after him. Then, there was silence.


	3. Part Three: The Future

(Minor AN: Sorry for any awkwardness in formatting. I tried to at least make it readable. Any complaints may be filed directly to the host, not the author :})

PART THREE: The Future

_19. Déjà vu_

Hermione lifted a bleary eyelid to the world as a high-pitched screaming under the pillow forced her into consciousness. After a minute or two of digging, she successfully extracted her blaring wand and groggily tossed it across the room. She would never, ever get used to the screaming of the Alarm Charm, but Muggle alarm clocks wouldn't work in Hogsmeade. She had to make do with what she had.

Flinging her feet over the bed, she started when warm fur brushed up against her legs. Crookshanks. Her cat would want to be fed and let out before she went off to the Ministry for work. It gave her a second jolt, remembering that she was back in the present time. It was odd, no longer living at Hogwarts amongst the Marauders. Wasn't it just yesterday that Sirius had overturned a goblet full of milk on her Arithmancy homework? Hadn't it only a handful of hours ago that she'd made it her life goal to hunt him down and inflict divine retribution upon his mortal soul?

She tipped a cup of dry cat food into Crookshanks's food dish, her brain working separately from her body. As it was, it almost seemed like the timeline she had meant to fix, the one where You-Know-Who lived to fight a second war, had never existed. It survived only as a distant, nagging memory in Hermione's mind. The three different realities struggled for dominance in Hermione's mind, confusing her-one of the past, one of the previous present world, and one of the new reality she'd created. They clanged about in her thoughts and she could feel a headache building.

Padma had warned her about time paradoxes, but Hermione had been too focused on accomplishing her mission to try to predict how the timeline would react. Contemplating it now, she realised she'd gotten off easy with what could have been a disastrous underestimation.

Because the two timelines had fused together, Hermione discovered she had two separate memories of the past. In one world, a nervous boy looking for his toad had confronted her on the Hogwarts Express and the two of them had ended up in Gryffindor House. There were many fond and full recollections from that life, but a lot of pain and fear. Her best friends had been Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, but she'd watched them both destroyed in a wizarding war.

In the second, different set of memories, ones associated with the new reality she had created, Hermione had ridden Hogwarts Express alone, was sorted into Ravenclaw, and finished her school years in relative silence. She never fought in a war, but never befriended Harry and Ron, too. The second set of reminiscences was void of the strong undercurrents of fear and loss, but at least the first had fond memories of forever-binding friendships.

This contemplation inevitably led to a slippery slope and she tried to block it from her mind as she moved about her flat in preparation for work. One timeline had given her the best friends she could ever ask for. She had many fond recollections and close bonds with people that she'd left behind, friendships that were lacking in the reality now lived in.

A growing sense of loss led to a dangerous avalanche around the time she finished her second cup of tea while comparing the two worlds. Paused with the teacup halfway to her mouth, Hermione came to an epiphany. Her life in this reality was devoid of much of the happiness she'd experienced in the old one. Instead of feeling happy for succeeding with her mission, a growing resentment, anger, and frustration bubbled within.

_'Just don't ask yourself which reality you prefer,'_ her rationality warned as the conflicted emotions began to build up. _'If you admit to preferring the life where you had Harry and Ron by your side, it'll be admitting to a preference for a life where all your loved ones were dead. What's the price of a few fond memories in comparison to having your best mates alive?'_

Reality started sinking in as she left her flat. While she had changed, and saved, the future, she'd also lost the things that had been important to her. Her relationships had been the driving force behind her travel to the past. Now, they didn't even exist. Alongside the anger and resentment, a sense of loss and self-pity began to emerge. However, like Racine's play, the one from which she'd procured the name 'Andromache,' rationality still played a leading role in Hermione's brain and she pushed the emotions away. She wished her rationality would disappear away long enough for her to have a good, guilt-free cry, though, something she hated having to indulge in.

She took a moment to control her turmoil before Apparating to the Ministry. Instead of breaking down and crying like a child, Hermione would do the mature thing and immerse herself so deeply into work that she wouldn't have time to contemplate dangerous thoughts. Feeling sorry for herself, and the added feeling of self-hatred because of it, would have to wait while she performed more important tasks. 

_20. An interlude in the Atrium_

Hermione muttered viciously as she made her way through the Atrium at the Ministry of Magic. It was never this bad, this horrendously crowded, coming into work. She doubted the Quidditch World Cup had been this packed.

Cringing, she berated herself for being melodramatic. There were enough things to be petty and bitter about; turning her life into a hyperbole was not on the menu, and the Quidditch World Cup had been horrendously jam-packed. If she were forced to take the stairs to her office, however, the future forecast would be cloudy with a chance of hexing.

"Don't even bother taking the lifts," a voice commented from behind. Hermione turned to face a considerably taller man wearing pinstriped business robes. _'Terry Boot, from your year, in Ravenclaw,'_ her mind supplied, answering her momentary question as to why he was familiar. He was gazing into the crowd over other people's heads, assessing the situation. "It's looking like the block-up is over in that direction. You might be better off taking the stairs."

It took Hermione a few more seconds to figure out why he was talking to her before her memories as a Ravenclaw overpowered the ones from when she'd been sorted into Gryffindor. Terry Boot was her best mate in this timeline, she remembered. She'd helped him pass Arithmancy back at Hogwarts. This epiphany brought up another thought to Hermione's teeming mind. She didn't know which she disliked more: the fact that she was answering her own questions, or the fact that the answers were naturally there, just above the surface. Instead of thinking about the worrisome state of her mind, though, she nervously plucked at her blue, department-issued, flameproof robes. It was a habit she'd picked up from stroking the silk lining in Andromache's wardrobe and she couldn't seem to stop it.

"What's going on over there? I'm too short to see," she asked, giving up on making her way through the crowd.

"Do you remember Lavender Brown? A pretty girl in our year at Hogwarts, Gryffindor?" he asked, still craning his head to watch the spectacle in front of him.

Hermione bit back a pithy retort that would have been laced with sarcasm. Terry wasn't doing anything wrong. She was just moody today. He couldn't possibly know that she'd been forced through six too many years of living with Lavender, years riddled with all too intimate secrets, such as the fact that the other girl colour-coordinated her knickers to her outfits. "I remember her. She loved divination and worshipped the ground that phoney, Trelawney, walked on."

Terry nodded. "Well, it looks like Ronald Weasley just proposed." A high-pitched feminine squeal was heard over the crowd. "And she just said yes."

In that moment, Hermione's heart cracked and shattered into a million pieces. 

_21. An interlude in the Department of Experimental Charms and Hexes_

_'Your day isn't half over,'_ Hermione coached herself as she entered her office within the Department of Experimental Charms and Hexes. _'It has barely begun. You can't just lose it and start hexing people randomly. It'll look bad,'_ Her day had started off on a bad foot, gotten progressively gotten worse, and was not over yet, but she would not break down into conjuring attack-canaries until she was off Ministry grounds. She had more dignity than that.

She caught herself absent-mindedly drawing runes in the air with her wand. A final flick forced a brilliant, orange glow over her office door as they set into the wood and faded.

Well, apparently, there might be a few advantages to living in this present, aside from the obvious ones of having family and previous friends alive. Connecting runic images to charms, in order to create stronger spells and barriers, had been a project she'd been working on within the Marauder-filled past to fill her spare time. In this future, she was pleased to note that she'd already finished the research and had successful, working prototypes of the spell. A rampaging elephant wouldn't be able to take down her door.

Sitting down at her desk, Hermione assessed her new life. It made sense that she would pursue a career in spell development alongside the Department of Experimental Charms and Hexes. She'd always been excellent at creating and modifying charm work. The Point-Me spell she'd created for Harry's use in the maze, for one example, had been a modification she'd made of a Compass Charm. Writing "Sneak" across Marietta Edgecomb's face was another good example of her creativity. It was reassuring that some aspects of her old life followed her into this one.

Hermione gazed down to look at her current project spread out on parchment across her desk. Time paradoxes were truly an interesting phenomenon, she noted. Her past timeline had to connect to her present in order to eliminate the paradox factor, and the Powers that Be saw to align them creatively. She gazed down to study excruciatingly thorough and familiar notes on the creation of a new Time-Turner, one that would allow its wearer to venture an extended period of time into the past. In this era, she'd been working in tandem with the Department of Mysteries for some time. Mirroring her Gryffindor past, she'd used a Time-Turner in her third year to take a double course load, so Ravenclaw-Hermione had some familiarity with the magical object. Late-night brainstorming, fuelled by insomnia, led to a mirroring success as well.

Currently, Hermione was left with another dilemma that exceeded morality. She had seen the Ministry at its worst. She knew that parasitic bureaucrats, Lucius Malfoy as her case in point, were like Daily Prophet reporters: harder to stomp out than cockroaches. The prospects of a regular Time-Turner in Malfoy's grubby paws made her shudder. Letting him possess a Time-Turner that could reach back years, then, made her heart stop.

Previously, Hermione had not considered the repercussions of letting such a device fall into the wrong person's hands, but having gone back to change the past herself, Hermione knew that she had a problem. This completed project, used by the wrong person, could utterly destroy reality and they knew it, but the same could happen with the right individual, something she knew from personal experience. Because of this, she now faced setting fire to, and completely destroying, two years of on-again, off-again research. The reality behind the situation brought frustrated tears to her eyes, ones she hurriedly buried to sit alongside her other toiling thoughts.

She placed her notes aside, preparing to give her thoughts more time to calm down. Until then, the working prototype of the Turner remained at home, buried in her school trunk, under enough protective wards and charms that Bill Weasley wouldn't be able to get to it. Unless somebody called in Albus Dumbledore to force his way into her flat and spend several hours hacking away at runic-charm protections, the Turner would be safe until she could come up with a decision as to what she should to do with it.

The contemplation of her old headmaster escalated into another line of thought. In this reality's history, there had been only one Great Wizarding War. According to the historical accounts, shortly after 1977, Albus Percival Wulferic Brian Dumbledore appeared in and out of Hogwarts with a secret project. On September 19, 1979, her birth date, the wizarding world had celebrated You-Know-Who's final, and only, defeat. What the history books did not elaborate on was how Dumbledore had won. When asked about it, much to Rita Skeeter's annoyance, the professor tended to dither on the subject. As far as Hermione was concerned, though, the world was probably better off this way. The less information spread about Horcruxes, the better. She'd already gone to the past to stop the destruction brought by one Dark Lord; she didn't need the stress of worrying about a possible second one.

In place of the Time-Turner dilemma, then, Hermione began to work on another project of hers: the creation of a permanent charm that could replace Boomslang skin in a hair-care potion. It had been one of the fields she'd been interested in pursuing in her other life, before she'd been forced to pass off the project on Padma Patil. Hermione was amused to see she was as far along in her research here as she'd been in her previous, Gryffindor life.

She'd only been working for five minutes when a knock on the door brought her out of her equations. Peevishly, and with a glare to the warded entrance into her office, she pretended to ignore her intruder.

Another, louder knock followed it. She glowered into her parchment irritably. If the trespasser hadn't gotten her request for privacy from the strong charms she'd placed on the door, then her lack of response should have been a clue to go away.

There was a moment of quiet, contemplative silence and Hermione let her hopes rise that the intruder had gone away. She turned back to her work and began to twiddle with her quill. There was a silent, still pause when suddenly, with an earth-shaking bang, her office was blown off its hinges. Hermione threw up a Shielding Charm around her work while the interloper thought to throw another one up around her.

Gazing in horror at the mess in her office, Hermione opened her mouth to screech at the individual. It died in her throat when she saw the figure standing in her doorway. Regulus Black, albeit aged from the last time she'd seen him, gazed down his nose at her with a carefully blank look on his face.

"Sorry about your door," he commented. Could have fooled her. He most definitely did not sound apologetic.

"I'm in the middle of something. Can I help you?" she asked peevishly. As soon as the words were out, she caught herself and cringed. This wasn't just Regulus Black she was dealing with. He was her department head, too. Once again, remembering important facts after the fact raked against her nerves.

"I know you're in the middle of something. I recognized the Privacy Charm you wove around your door and I was really hoping I wouldn't have to blow it off its hinges. Again. I'm beginning to doubt how much more resistance it'll take." He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the doorframe. "However, I've got the Department of Mysteries on my arse, pelting me with interoffice memos every hour, asking about your advancement with their Time-Turner. I finally made a deal with one of their department heads that, if I got information about its progress from you first-hand, they'd leave me the hell alone for the rest of the day." He pushed himself off the doorframe and walked across the room to inspect her office door laying charred and pathetic on the ground. After a moment of contemplation, he picked it up and leaned it gently against the doorframe.

Hermione sighed and counted to ten. "They're the Department of Mysteries. Don't they understand miracles take time? They're lucky I've progressed so far with the project in such a short period."

Regulus shrugged. "For them, miracles are a daily occurrence. Their job is to dissect them. Or, at least, that's all the information I can get out of my sources, anyway. How does the progress go on the Time-Turner, by the way?" he unexpectedly asked, turning the conversation back to duty.

Hermione bit her lip and rubbed at her robes again. Regulus frowned at these actions, bringing forth more questions to her mind. Just how well did Regulus know her, and was it well enough to recognize her telltale signs of nervousness "What is it now?" he demanded.

She swore in her head. Apparently, he _did_ know her that well. Drat.

"I'm thinking about scrapping the project," she informed him in a tiny voice, unable to meet his eyes.

"Explain," he commanded firmly.

"I used a Time-Turner at Hogwarts so I could take a few extra classes." He snorted at her use of 'a few' but let her continue. "It could only go back twelve hours at the most. However, when I look back at those times, I'm grateful for how honest I was. Do you know many things I could have changed, with only those twelve hours?" she asked him. "There are infinite possibilities!" she exclaimed.

She was met with silence and took it as encouragement. "Having a Time-Turner that could go back years could be disastrous, no matter who uses it or what intentions they have. If the best of individuals can permanently change the future, what would the worst of them do?" Her easy rationality gave her the courage to meet his eyes, and she recognized an unreadable look on his face. It must be a trademark Black Family gaze, for she knew both Andromeda and Sirius had been experts at it.

She continued her explanation. "Think of what could happen if a certain blonde, cane-wielding, high-ranking Ministry wanke-uhh," she stammered slightly, much to his amusement, "_official_ was able to sweet-talk the Minister of Magic into letting him preview my prototype. I wouldn't put it past him to go back in time and kill Professor Dumbledore so You-Know-Who could rise to power. Now that I think about it, I believe it's very dangerous to give somebody that sort of power. Myself included." Once had been enough for her. She'd make sure to destroy the Time-Turner later.

Regulus sighed and moved to sit on the edge of her desk. "I had the feeling you'd eventually come to this conclusion," he admitted.

Hermione's head snapped up from where her gaze had been studying her hands. She glared at him accusingly. "And you let me continue with the project anyway?" she cried, flabbergasted.

He fixed her with a trademark Black Family Smirk. "The chances that you came to this conclusion, before the project was over, were fifty-fifty. I figured if you had the revelation, no harm done, you'd start on a new project, and I'd be proud of you. On the other hand, if you didn't have this epiphany, our department would lord you over the other departments a few weeks, wheedle extra funding out of the Minister for few months, and I'd _still_ be proud of you."

Hermione felt the blush rising to her cheeks at his praise, wanting to sink into the floor. He noticed the redness and laughed, making it worse. "It's not going to be fun letting the DoM know you've decided to scrap the project, though," he added absent-mindedly.

She shrugged. "If they throw a fit about it, just schedule us a meeting and I'll handle them on my own."

"That's my girl," Regulus grinned, ruffling her hair and leaving before she could do him bodily harm.

She leaned back in her office chair, glaring at her charred door. So maybe there was one positive thing about this timeline. Saving Regulus had turned out in her favour. 

_22. An interlude in the park_

It was a beautiful spring day. The sky was a shade of atmospheric blue that should only exist in storybook illustrations. An additional vibrant green from foliage gave off an ethereal glow. Beds of flowers dotted through the park and provided every colour of the rainbow. Children chased each other through the landscape, their laughter ringing out across the park. Even the birds were singing and merrily darting through the sky.

Sequestered off in a corner, in the shadow of a large oak tree, Hermione Granger sat huddled on a red-and-white chequered picnic blanket, glowering at the world. Until yesterday evening, she'd completely forgotten about the mandatory, annual Ministry Picnic. Until yesterday evening, she'd been diligently working on the charm she'd finally decided would replace her Time-Turner project. If things worked out well, she'd successfully create a sister-charm of the runic sequences she'd dabbled with in the past. Instead of having to write the runes in the air and immediately tie them to an incantation, she wanted to invent a sequence that would allow a castor to write them ahead of time to activate at a later instance.

She'd just had a breakthrough when Regulus forced his way into her office and kicked her out of the Department. He'd informed her she was not to return until Monday. Then, he'd made sure she'd left her notes behind before using the moment the lift doors closed to remind her of the mandatory picnic. The furious hex she'd cast had innocently hit the door with a shower of sparks, and his laughter echoed through the lift as it ascended.

Now, she was stuck at this stupid Ministry function, something she discovered Albus Dumbledore had requested of the Minister several years after the final battle. In Hermione's solitary preference, it was greatly preferential to spend work hours actually working, versus sitting outside, getting sun burnt and sweaty. To add insult to injury, Terry had stolen the text she'd brought along and hidden it. He'd told her that he wouldn't return it until she looked like she was having fun. Cries and explanations of a Catch-22 were ignored as he wondered off to socialize with his girlfriend, Susan Bones, and her friends.

The rest of the Ministry, it seemed, was jovially participating in the festivities. A sack race had commenced far across the field. She was a little overjoyed to hear Lee Jordan commentating it, though she preferred Luna's commentaries. Near the sack race, picnic tables were colourfully decked out and witches and wizards socialized with their families. Elsewhere, the smell of burning charcoal enticed her nose. In a few moments, she thought as she twiddled a piece of grass between her fingers, there would be a short, nasty duel amongst the men to see who would win the title of Grill Master, thus winning the privilege to flip the hamburgers and turn the steaks. James Potter, she'd heard, was the long-running champion.

Hermione, on the other hand, preferred to be left alone. She sat with her back against the oak tree, knees pulled up against her chest and held into place with her arms. In her boredom, she contemplated the pattern of the sundress she'd worn in lieu of heavy robes. Daisy-yellow was one of her favourite colours. She associated it with cheerfulness and happiness, but rarely had the chance to wear it. As brilliant a robe-maker as Madam Malkin might be, modern witch-wear was still slightly too Victorian to pull off pastel colours well. She absent-mindedly picked at a bit of white lace that adorned the hems and watched an ant crawl across the far corner of the picnic blanket. Her area was almost like a private bubble cut off from the rest of the park, she reflected lazily.

This was exactly why she wasn't expecting a dog bark in her right ear. When it did come, she screamed at the sudden sound, flinging herself away in fright. Her hand immediately flew for her wand before a moment's hesitation. There, on the picnic blanket, right next to where she'd been, a large, black monstrosity sat on its haunches, panting away and grinning a happy, doggy-smile. Its thick black fur looked extremely uncomfortable, even with the moderate weather they'd been having lately. Its size was another matter. Even sitting, the dog was gigantic. However, its merrily _tocking_ tail illustrated its friendliness. She watched in dismay as it dribbled on the blanket.

_'Groenendael,'_ she thought vaguely while she glared at it. _'A type of Belgian sheepdog.'_ The big beast reminded her of the sleek animals she'd seen working the fields on the continent's countryside. She'd visited with her parents between her fourth and fifth year at Hogwarts, and had been rather impressed with the dogs' sleek efficiency. After an awkward introduction through a mix of English, French, and German, one of the herders had even allowed her to greet his dogs. She had discovered that the slightly menacing animals were actually extremely active and truly friendly animals. The beast slobbering on her picnic blanket, however, was considerably larger than the ones she'd encountered on vacation.

"I'm guessing that bark in my ear was purely intentional," she said, tucking her wand back to where it had come. It barked again in response, jumping up from its sitting position to where she lied sprawled on the ground. To her disgust, it licked her face from jaw to brow and sat back on its haunches again, tail thumping wildly in pleased, doggy behaviour.

"Ugh!" she cried, wiping at the drool on her face. She glared at the dog, a look that was not unfamiliar on her face as of late. "That was vile and disgusting." It let out a 'whoof' of air in response. "Yes, well, my experience with dogs is that they aren't picky about what they eat. We're not going to broach the subject of where your tongue might have been last." Doing her best to ignore the beast, she futilely brushed at the black fur the beast had left on her yellow dress, dismally wondering why a spell to remove animal fur from clothing had not yet been invented. She might just look into that for a new project.

The dog let out a sound akin to a snicker, much to her surprise. Hermione paused the bleak inspection of her dress to lean in to get a better look at the animal. The intelligence in the dog's eyes was all too sharp to be purely canine smarts. While it had been many years since she'd last seen him this way, wouldn't it be just her luck if...

"PADS!"

The dog jumped up from its spot on the blanket like it had been stung by a bee, but it wasn't quick enough for the blue blur that ran past Hermione. She watched as a young toddler took a flying leap and flung itself on the fleeing animal, latching onto its fur. The two struggled for dominance, and soon, the dog was pinned to the ground by what looked like a blue-haired three-year-old. It was her turn to snigger now. Whenever she'd gone out into London in her previous life, she'd been constantly dragging Teddy Lupin away from wildlife. If this dog was who she had an inkling it might be, it served him right if he'd become Teddy's furry "horsie."

"PadspadsPADDYpads woof! Run now!" Teddy cried from where he sat, bouncing up and down on the dog's stomach and a handful of fur in both hands. "Pads GO!" He merrily tugged as hard as he could on his makeshift reigns.

The dog fixed her with the most pathetic look she she'd ever seen on an animal and let out a high, keening whine. She cocked her head to the side and his tail wagged hopefully once, twice, before he scratched at his cheek with a foot.

So much for letting Sirius Black get his comeuppance. Hermione stood up and wearily approached Teddy, who was busy examining the loosened fur he'd ripped out of Sirius's coat. "Why hello there! Do you like puppies?" she asked Teddy, trying to distract his attention from the dog underneath him.

Teddy looked up at her with big blue eyes. Hermione watched his hair turned black. "Puppy is a horsie!" Teddy cried, grin lighting up his face.

"This puppy looks like he might be broken. I don't think he can give you a horsie ride. Would you like me to give you one instead?" Hermione asked him. Teddy thought about it for a few moments and reached his hands up to her. With a practiced swoop, Hermione gathered the toddler into her arms and balanced him on a hip. She swiftly rocked him back and forth, almost like a waltz, in a game she remembered he used to enjoy. He clutched to her sundress with glee and let out a squeal of laughter.

"You do like puppies, but you like horsie rides better, don't you?" she laughed. "Can you tell me what sound the puppy makes?"

Teddy grinned at her. "Puppy? Pads says, 'Bloody wanker!'" he squealed, answering her question. Hermione tripped on one of the tree roots, but at least the dog had the decency to look slightly ashamed at the young boy's parroting. She was definitely dealing with Sirius Black in Animagus form. She wasn't quite sure how comfortable she was, dealing with a man who, last time she'd seen him, had been snogging her, a complete stranger, in the dark but, for now, she didn't have time to think upon it.

"Oh, geez. I'm sorry!" another voice called out. Hermione spun around and was stopped by bright, emerald eyes from behind a pair of glasses.

Harry Potter, completely alive and breathing, stood in front of her, looking slightly sheepish. "I was put in charge of babysitting duties. I let those two out of my sight for two seconds and they end up on the other side of the field." He scratched at the back of his head and grinned. "Hermione Granger, right? You shared Head duties with my mate, Neville. We had a couple of NEWTs classes together. I was in Gryffindor."

A soft smile fell on Hermione's face, a smile that radiated the inner tranquillity she felt at seeing one of her best friends alive, utterly at peace with his family, friends, and position in life. In this world, Harry's life had been perfect, without struggle and hardship. "Harry Potter. I wouldn't forget who you are. Your DADA scores always ousted mine. What did you end up doing after school? I know you were an excellent Quidditch player; we never won a game against you guys."

He smiled back at her. "Quidditch is fun, but I ended up following my dad's footsteps and became an Auror. Head Auror Moody says I have what it takes to become Department Head by the time I'm forty, even if I do put my wand in my back pocket."

"I trust your buttocks are still attached?" she asked cheekily. It surprised a laugh out of him.

"Acquainted with Moody, then?" he wanted to know.

"No. Just familiar with the stories. I work for the Department of Experimental Charms and Hexes, so we really don't see much of the other departments unless they need something from us. Like if somebody accidentally sets off a Skin-Reversal Curse that doesn't have a counter spell, or something." She pondered for a short moment about the memory, absent-mindedly bouncing Teddy on her hip. "Actually, that Curse was an absolute nightmare. Regulus had the entire office dropping their projects to work out its counter-curse, but I was eventually able to figure out a solution that didn't involve ripping off the skin and re-growing it." Out of the corner of her eye, the dog cocked his head at this statement. She refused to interpret the look.

Harry grimaced. "I think I heard about that. The bloke was in the Auror department and mishandled a dark object. They tried to keep it quiet. I... er..." he stammered for a few moments, changing the subject and trying to figure out how to regain his babysitting duties. "I can take the kid if you like?" He gestured to Teddy, who was currently making himself acquainted to fistfuls of Hermione's hair.

"NO!" Teddy cried, clinging tighter to her sundress.

"I guess that answers it. Do you need me to do anything with him?" Hermione asked. Secretly, she was thrilled at having an excuse to spend more time with her old best friend. After realising he was alive and well again, and especially after watching him die once in her old life, she wasn't sure if she wanted to part from him just yet.

"Yeah, sure. That'd be excellent. Actually, I was keeping an eye on him for his parents. His father is currently comforting mine for losing the title of Picnic Grill Master to my mum. Since Teddy seems pretty attached to you-_and I watched you bark in her ear when she wasn't paying attention. That wasn't very sportsmanship like_," this was directed at the dog, which panted back lazily, "you'd be more than welcome to come join our table. Regulus Black has had some pretty neat things to say about you. And I'll bet you have some excellent stories of your own."

She chuckled to herself. Hermione did have some excellent stories to tell, even if some of those were private to Andromache. She followed Harry out from underneath the shade of the tree and through the sun drenched fields to a particularly loud and festive picnic table. The dog, still lounging on the checked blanket from where he'd been toppled by the toddler, watched the two go with a curious look. 

_23. An interlude in Regulus's office_

It was a normal day in the office, if not more quiet than usual. Ministry members were still experiencing the sobering effects of returning to work after the picnic the Friday before. The surreal feeling of having re-met her best friends just days before-and people that she'd either seen die or were already dead by the time she'd been introduced into the wizarding world-had faded into the recesses of Hermione's mind. Having a breakthrough on a new project also helped focus her attention on more pressing matters.

It was a bit of a surprise, then, when the door that lead into the Department of Experimental Charms and Hexes slammed open down the hall with enough force to knock over a few items on her desk.

Her surprise quickly turned into irritation. It had been her idea, when she'd first started working with the department, to use specialized charms and potions to keep interference between projects from occurring. The slightest outside noise could make or break concentration, which could turn a nearly completed project into scorch marks on a desk. If it hadn't been for her fast control, Hermione would have exploded half the department within her first month on the job when Regulus had chosen an inopportune moment to force his way into her office. Her new project had swiftly turned into creating "bubbles" around the offices in the department to keep outside influences away. Now, faintly hearing resounding explosions and muttered yells as her co-workers lost control of their experiments, even after the dampening spells, was enough to spark her anger.

Hermione pushed up from her desk with a huff and poked her head out the door, an action mirrored by the other employees. An angry black whirlwind made its way through the exploded entranceway and past her, too quick for her to see who or what it was, and slammed into Regulus's office down the way.

"He took the bloody door right off its hinges," a disgruntled voice to her left said. Hermione turned to her neighbour. The middle-aged wizard's face was soot-darkened, his hair was singed, and it looked like he'd lost his eyebrows in an explosion. His department-issued fireproof robes were untouched, but his office gently emitted black clouds of smoke. "Bloody wanker must've really let at it with whatever he threw at the door. He's right lucky I've a hand about my wand, or otherwise, we'd have bigger troubles to deal with right now."

"Your office was incinerated?" a witch across the hall asked. She, too, looked a little worse for wear. Angry, red scratch marks marred her face and her hair had wildly escaped its confines.

"Completely. Been working on a portable Fiendfyre Charm you can carry in a jam jar. The explosion caused the jar to crack. Can you imagine what would've happened if I'd dropped it?" Hermione wasn't quite sure if she liked the proud, nonchalant manner the wizard used when he talked about his project.

At that moment, Regulus's door opened a crack and fifteen heads turned to stare at it. Fifteen pairs of eyes warily regarded an interoffice memo as it zoomed out lazily, but only fourteen breathed a sigh of relief when it made a slight turn and dived into Hermione's hair. She grumbled a sound of complaint as she went through the process of dislodging it. Fingers fought to unfold it from its paper plane shape and she was met by Regulus's looping handwriting.

"Granger. My office. Pronto. Leave your temper at the door."

"Have fun," the man to the left commented, reading the note over her shoulder.

She glared at him and left the confines of her office to walk down the hallway. 'Leave your temper at the door,' had just the opposite effect on her, and Hermione could feel her ire increasing with each footstep. The eyes continued to follow her. Reaching for the door handle, she turned and spun. "Don't you all have projects to be completing?" she snapped. The other fourteen heads disappeared as one, but she could still feel their eyes on her. She opened Regulus's door and slammed it shut behind her. Within, she was met with a tempest.

Regulus's office was a mess. His desk was untouched, but various implements and objects had been thrown at walls in a fit of anger. A crushed bottle of brandy leaked onto the carpet. Regulus, in turn, calmly sat in his Boss Chair, a comfortable monstrosity of stuffing and leather he'd gotten the Ministry to finance. He took careful sips from his own tumbler of brandy and fixed his attention on the raging storm in front of him.

Inside, Hermione let out a sigh. She'd met him both as a teenager and an adult, so she should have expected Sirius Black to be the type of person to literally blow down doors when he was angry. He currently paced the centre of his brother's office, wildly flinging his wand about and exploding small things when his temper overcame him. Sirius's exploding personality was not one to take lightly, especially when he was having a tiff like this.

However, Hermione wasn't about to sit back and take the garbage he was probably going to spew at her. If he wanted to fight, then Regulus couldn't stop her from retaliating. It was important, though, to figure out why Sirius was so angry, just in case any retaliation led to her getting fired. Her only consolation was that she wouldn't have time to be nervous in his presence if he was acting like a petulant child. She'd be able to counteract his anger with a bit of her own.

"Hermione," Regulus greeted cordially, the tranquil foil to his brother's raging anger. "Please come in. Watch out for any shards of glass, Love. I've had a bit of an accident with a brandy decanter." As well as, apparently, a few picture frames, paperweights, inkbottles, and-_oh, Merlin_. Hermione tried her best to ignore the fluttering pages of a book that appeared to be recently torn out. Sirius Black had better hope for the sanctity of his life that he hadn't touched a book that couldn't be immediately replaced at Flourish and Blotts. If he'd ripped apart an antique, Hermione would use him as her guinea pig.

"I got your memo. Luckily, I was only working on practical theory when the silence was rudely interrupted," she stated. Her eyes drifted over to Sirius. "I've been working on time-activated runic spells. Did either of you take Ancient Runes?" When she was in the past, she knew Regulus had planned on continuing with the subject through NEWTs level, and even if Sirius hadn't taken extra course loads, he would know the basic runic alphabet. "My newest project involves combining Hagalaz with Thurisaz."

This announcement caused Regulus to raise his eyebrows and regain his posture while Sirius's anger turned to slight calculation.

"You're trying to combine Hagalaz and Thurisaz?" he demanded accusingly. "You could decimate the entire Ministry!" Oh, good. He was familiar with the highly destructive tendencies of both runes.

Hermione glared at him. "I'm trying to develop a contained detonation for construction and rock quarries. I have excellent control of my wand, so I doubt that I alone would cause an explosion. What could have 'decimated' the entire Ministry, though, is if I'd been working on the wand work, rather than the theory, when a petulant individual decided to storm up to the department, blow open the entrance doors, stomp through the hallway, and force himself into his brother's office, disrupting many individual projects past the protection charms we've set up around the offices." She might have enjoyed the sputtering anger on his face a little too much. "Was there something you needed from me, Regulus?"

"We'll talk later about additional precautions we might take as you further your investigation on runic sequences," he told her. The look on his face added that they would probably be discussing the reasons why she would no longer continue her research on Hagalaz and Thurisaz combinations, too. "In the meantime, we've got other problems on our hands. Sirius, this is Hermione Granger. She graduated from Ravenclaw at the top of her class with the highest NEWTs scores in half a century. She's been working in my department for several years now and has only blown up her office once." Only in the Department of Experimental Charms and Hexes would a limited amount of office explosions mark proficiency in wand work. With only one office detonation, Hermione could be considered a pro.

"That explosion was your fault," she shot back at him, half-heartedly.

He continued, ignoring her. "Hermione, this is my brother, Sirius Black."

Neither made to acquaintance themselves to the other. Hermione was still ticked at his temper tantrum, and Sirius was itching for a fight, the desire to take it out on the witch in lieu of his brother growing.

"Sirius is currently employed under the Department of Mysteries. He's one of the Department Heads there." Hermione's anger drained slightly at this. She could see where the conversation was going.

Regulus continued. "I sent the DoM a formal request this morning on your desire to desist further experimentation with the Time-Turner. I told them that the Deutsch," he used the slang term that had been coined from their department's anagram-DoECH, "would be scrapping the Time-Turner project and destroying all associated research. I sent that letter," he paused to look at his wrist; Hermione was amused to notice he did not wear a watch, "about twenty minutes ago." He turned to Sirius. "How long would you say it takes to get here from the ninth level?"

"It would depend. Is one using the stairs or the lift? We know one needn't bother to open and close doors, though. Ours is currently hanging off its hinges," Hermione answered.

"This is bloody ridiculous," Sirius raged, interrupting the banter. "The Department of Mysteries has been working alongside your department for two years now, hoping to produce this mechanism. Just last week, you said yourself that a prototype had been created and the project was closing on its finish. Why the hell are you wasting our time and resources when you won't even go through with it?" Sirius demanded, pounding on Regulus's desk.

"Don't take it out on him," Hermione shot at the elder Black. She ran a hand through her frizzy brown mane and it crackled with unrestrained static electricity. It wasn't stupid, perfect, and shiny like the hair sported by the two look-alike brothers in front of her, and she adored it. "I'm the one who was the Deutsch liaison with your department. It was my decision to discontinue and destroy the project. Your brother was just there to support my choices."

Sirius stared at her incredulously. "You? You don't look any older than my godson and he's only barely out of Hogwarts. How the hell did you get landed with a project like this?"

"Did you miss the part where I said her NEWTs scores were the best in half a century?" Regulus asked from the sidelines. "Actually, you'd better remember that before she decides your bollocks are better off detached from your body. She doesn't like being talked down to. Age, or the lack thereof, has never been one of Hermione's problems."

Hermione cast Regulus a dirty look before she continued her fight with Sirius. "I used a Time-Turner through my third year to take additional classes. I'm very familiar with the process, and like Regulus says, I don't take kindly to people who underestimate me due to my age, house status, or birth. Just because I'm twenty doesn't mean I don't have a brain."

"If you don't want to be labelled due to your age, then maybe you should consider making adult decisions and sticking to them, instead of scrapping them for the next best idea," Sirius shot back. "You just tossed hours of my Department's work into the rubbish bin."

"How dare you?" she cried, advancing upon him. The static in her hair crackled, and he met her on an even playing field. The blank, sneering look on his face only continued to irritate her. "How dare you assume that my decision to halt this project was made lightly? You aren't the only one who spent hours of work on this project. Do you have any idea what it's like, realising I have to destroy the thing I've dedicated my life to for the past two years?"

"Then don't destroy it. Sodding finish it and be over with it!" They were now nearly chest-to-chest. Hermione craned her head up to glare into his face and he glowered down at her.

"I can't!" she hollered.

"Don't you yell at me!" he yelled.

"Well, pull your head out of your bum long enough to stop approaching it from a 'poor me, poor us' point of view and focus on the big picture." She jabbed him on the chest. "The Ministry is still full of bureaucracy and there will always be corrupt politicians waltzing about. What do you think it'd take for somebody like Lucius Malfoy to bribe the Minister into seeing the Department of Mystery's 'newest accomplishment'?" She jabbed into his chest again as she asked the question. "And what if that stupid peacock decided, 'Oh. I'm not quite sure how happy with all the Mudbloods running around, sullying the ground I walk upon. I think I'll just _Accio_ that Time-Turner and make sure You-Know-Who lives to purge our society,'?" Her next jab was accompanied by a very angry snarl. "Do you really want an object lying around that can tempt even the most noble of people to change the past 'for the better'? Because I'd really like _not_ to live through a second Great Wizarding War, it it's all the same to you."

He latched onto her finger as she went to jab his chest again. It was then that she realised how close their faces had become in the argument. An Azkaban-free life had been good to him, and very kind to his features. She gulped and tried her best to ignore the memories of last time their faces had been this close together.

"How can you really look at society that harshly?" Sirius wanted to know. He ignored her attempts to pull back her finger. "Do you really distrust people that much?"

Hermione let out a hollow laugh. There was no way he could ever understand the full emotion and history behind her realistic ideology. If he ever had an inkling that she'd been to the past to play with his, and his loved ones', history, he'd be absolutely livid. "I had an ordinary Time-Turner that could only go back twelve hours," she partially lied. "I only ever had honest and noble intentions towards it. And I still felt the pull to go back and change things 'a little.' Now what if I had the means and desire to go back even farther and change things a lot?"

She futilely yanked at her finger, which he still refused to release. She noted now that the spitting anger he had met her with only a monologue before had melted away for a familiar, pensive look across his face. Hermione hadn't liked this look when she masqueraded as Andromache, and she certainly did not like it when she was in her own skin. It was a look that read deep contemplation and, ultimately, greater trouble for her. Their faces were still too close together for comfort, and she couldn't free herself from his grasp.

From the sidelines, Regulus watched the interaction with growing interest. He hadn't seen a fight like this in over two decades. It had been twenty-two years now, in fact. Ignoring the rest of their argument, Regulus began to piece the facts together. There was prototype Time-Turner with the ability to travel back just twenty-two years, if not even further. There was also an intelligent, moral young lady with her loved ones' interests at heart. Regulus recalled another's mysterious appearance, disappearance, and the interactions she'd had with his brother in between. This would serve as food for thought later. For now, he needed to keep the two deadlocked in front of him from killing one another.

_24. An interlude in the Three Broomsticks_

"And she just went at you?" Remus asked incredulously. Peter snickered into his drink, unwilling to meet anybody's eyes.

Sirius wearily dragged a hand through his hair. "Whose side are you all on?" he demanded. He glared at James, watching the drink sputter from his friend's nose. Sirius dug a dirty handkerchief out of a pocket and flung it at James's head.

"Ta," the other man wheezed, trying his best to mop up the drink before Madam Rosmerta wandered over to yell at them.

"I don't think this is a case of being with you or against you. From the sound of it, you're lucky she didn't blow up the Department," Remus added in with a frown.

"Learn to live a little, Moony," Peter piped in. He took a deep drink. "Pads here hasn't had a bird stick up to him like that in ages. You've seen how they just slobber all over him and agree with everything he says. Does him good to meet up with a witch with a little backbone." He abruptly turned the conversation into a different direction. "You going to ask her on a date?"

"The 'bird' in question is Harry's age," Sirius replied dryly. "She also seemed more concerned for the broken entryway door than she did for me."

"How do you know that?" Peter demanded.

Sirius paused thoughtfully for a moment. "There might have been accusations of having my head too far up my arse to see matters clearly. I was also referred to as a 'petulant teenager' somewhere in the conversation. And then, right after she'd defended her right to drop this project she'd been working on, she seemed to calm down a bit, up until she remembered I...uh... accidentally freed the door from its oppressive constraints. Regulus shielded his office to keep her in there while he went to deal with 'matters,' and took her wand with him. He conveniently forgot to silence her before he left, though, and I thought I'd help him out a bit at that. Not before a few more accusations and an offer to provide me with information on ministry-funded anger management classes and sensitivity training, though."

"You cast a Silencing Charm on her in the middle of a tirade? Do you have a death wish?" James wheezed, partially recovered from inhaling his drink. "Lily's constantly telling me I'm one of the daftest people she's ever met, but even I'm not _that_ daft."

"I didn't cast a Silencing Charm on her!" Sirius defended. The fact that he didn't elaborate on the accusation did not bode well. James, knowing his best friend for three decades now, raised an eyebrow. "Okay," Sirius admitted, "There is a possibility that I froze her tongue to the roof of her mouth before I left, but I didn't cast any silencing spells on her."

There was a round of laughter at the table and a grin unfurled on Sirius's face. He was unable to keep the smile from forming at the memory of the way her eyes burned as he left.

"You've always had a way with women," James chuckled. "I met the girl at the Ministry picnic. Harry introduced her as his class's Head Girl. She didn't seem like the type to be so full of fire like that," he commented.

Sirius now smirked at his friend. "She's got a spark of temper that could put Lily to shame. I just seem to have a gift of bringing it out in her, Regulus says. He also says she's one of the most brilliant people he's ever met and has an inclination for creativity."

"Ahh," James sighed wistfully. "It seems like it was just yesterday that we were third years sitting in Dumbledore's office, listening to McGonagall Floo my parents. She used those very same words, didn't she?"

"I don't think she used them in the same context," Remus replied dryly. "As it is, I think you should make sure your will is updated and current, Padfoot."

"I really don't want to be there when she comes for revenge," Peter agreed. "'Hell hath no fury' and such on."

"You think she'll come back for more?" Sirius asked. He tried to look less interested in the prospect than what he was feeling.

Remus chuckled. "I don't think you'll be able to keep her away. In fact, from the sound of it, I'd be looking into renewing your passport right about now."

_25. A second interlude in the Three Broomsticks_

"Rough week?" Madam Rosmerta asked with a gentle tone.

Hermione looked up with haunted eyes from where she was hunched over a butterbeer. "You really have no idea."

Madam Rosmerta chuckled heartily. "I might have an inkling. Four of my regulars were here last night, discussing an incident that happened in your department. It sounds like there was a fight between one of the workers there and an employee from the Department of Mysteries."

"Oh really?" This caught Hermione's interest. "What impression did you get from the situation?" she asked.

Rosmerta's eyes twinkled. "Not that my opinion matters or anything, I'm just a barkeep, but Sirius Black ought to be terrified for his life."

"Is he?" Hermione asked calculatingly.

"That boy? Chances are, he's looking forward to the challenge."

"Then I'd better give him something to look forward to. My boss does say I have a tendency to be maliciously creative."

_ intermède: La vie (de Sirius) en rose_

Regulus could hear his older brother stomp into the kitchen, muttering and grumbling and generally being a wonderful morning person, and he took his time finishing his perusal of the Daily Prophet. "The Holyhead Harpies made it through the quasi-semi-finals," he said, rustling the pages. "Looks like Harry might end up taking time off of work like he was afraid he'd have to. Ginny wants him to travel with her if the team makes it to the World Cup. She wants to take a holiday after the season is over. Molly's going to have kittens."

He put down the paper to look at Sirius. There were several, heavy seconds of silence before the gut-wrenching laughter was forcefully pulled from him. His guess may have been out on a limb, but it seemed like Sirius's god-awful mood this morning could be attested to the bright pink hair he sported on his head. Even more amusing was the fact that Sirius's eyebrows, too, were horrendously pink. Regulus was willing to bet the hair on his head wasn't the only place Sirius had turned rose. However, as a younger brother, he lived with a strong, "Don't ask, don't tell," policy, and he wasn't that curious.

Sirius peevishly waited for his brother's laughter to die out. And waited. And waited a bit more. Finally, he cast a Silencing Charm to end the guffaws. "I don't know how that Granger bint did it," Sirius spat, stabbing his spoon into his oatmeal. "It burns, the fact that she knew I have to take a flea potion one a month, although I'm really hoping she doesn't know why. If word leaks out I didn't register as an Animagus, I'm bringing James and Peter down with me." Regulus quietly winced at the treatment the porcelain bowl was getting. "On top of that, she was somehow able to intercept the potion, which I have delivered to my office in the DoM." He glared at Regulus, as if his younger brother was at fault for his current predicament. "What takes the bloody cake, though, is that I have no sodding idea how she dyed my hair. She made it so I'll have to ask for her help to get back to normal."

Regulus lifted the Silencing Charm with a swirl of his wand. "It serves you right. She ended up sitting in my office for over an hour because she was silent and I forgot about her. You deserve whatever you've got coming."

"You think it'll continue?" Sirius asked, forgetting his anger with the oatmeal and becoming curious. Regulus registered the look of curiosity and filed his assessment away for further thought.

"Hermione can be a very vengeful girl. You're lucky she didn't do worse to you. But then again, if she had done worse, it'd mean her retribution was over. I think you've got a bit of a ride in store," Regulus replied thoughtfully, focusing back to the matter at hand.

Regulus didn't much care for the boyish grin that lit Sirius's features, not when it was directed at his protégé. "Excellent. I look forward to it." 

_27. An interlude in the Ministry of Magic_

Something was wrong with the wards on the Ministry. For some reason, Sirius was unable to Apparate into the designated arrival points. Taking the Floo ended up being out of the question, as well. Every time he got close to his destination, a faint, orange glow of the Algiz rune, the ancient rune for shielding, on top of what looked suspiciously like the rune of the Grim, would burn in the air and he'd find himself flung back to his starting point. He'd been forced to use the visitor's entrance into the Ministry. If he hadn't had years of pranking people and having fun at others' expense, his face would have matched his hair for all the laughing and pointing he encountered as he began his descent to the ninth level. He'd even run into James and Harry, both of whom had been anything but supportive.

The fact that the lift doors glowed orange with the same runic equation when he got close to it did not bode well. Sirius was forced to take the stairs to his department, only to find out that the doors leading into the DoM rejected him as well. He found himself taking the stairs back up to the third level to pay Hermione Granger a visit as he reflected on what his brother had told him about the girl. 'Hermione can be a very vengeful girl' was an understatement. Not only had the girl made sure that he would have to publicly show his pink hair to the entire Ministry, but she'd also made sure that he would have to appeal to her and grovel for her help.

The girl was a bloody genius when it came to playing mental games. Underneath the embarrassment, frustration, and pink hair, Sirius was secretly thrilled. If she wanted to play games, so be it. He chuckled a bit when he entered the Deutsch department, noticing a faint blue glow of runes on the door. Eihwaz, the Ancient Rune for protection, sat on top of the Grim's rune, and both were embedded to the department's entrance. She'd warded the damn doors against his magic, guaranteeing that he'd never blow them off their hinges again.

The Department of Experimental Charms and Hexes's hallway was exceedingly quiet. With slight trepidation, Sirius made his way to the door with "Hermione Granger" on the nameplate and sharply knocked upon it.

Inside, Hermione had been expecting his arrival for several minutes now, ever since she had felt the activation on the runes in the DoM, but she was willing to let him sweat it out a bit. She waited until he'd knocked a second time before responding in her sweetest voice, "Come in!"

It took all her will power not to laugh at the disgruntled man in front of her. Pink was not his colour. For all the trouble she'd gone through, what with bribing Anthony Goldstein to slip into his superior's office and steal the potion, wait for her to tamper with it, and return it to its proper place, it had been worth it. "Can I help you, Mr. Black? I'm awfully busy today," she told him, the perfect picture of innocence. She leaned forward, resting on her desk with elbows propped up on the top and hands folded underneath her chin. It was almost like talking to an angel who'd lost a fight with a hairbrush.

"I seem to be having this problem with a slight discolouration of my hair," he responded, matching her tone. He conjured a chair in front of her desk, a monstrosity that would have put Regulus's office chair to shame, and made himself comfortable. "I was using a flea potion on my dog and, and when he went to shake, it got into my hair."

She responded with a thoughtful noise. "Did your dog also end up pink?" she questioned. The smug amusement in her eyes tickled him... pink. Quite literally.

"Indeed." This answer came out a little more grated than necessary. Her lips folded upward in a greater smirk.

"And I see your eyebrows are also pink. Am I to guess that the discolouration doesn't end there?" she asked.

Now the girl was just playing with him. He'd play back. "Darling," he purred, leaning forward. He was thrilled to watch her smirk drop and a look of uncertainty growing on her face at his tone. "If you really wanted to know if the hair on the top of my head matched everywhere else, all you had to do was ask. I'd be glad to show you." He stood up and made to reach for his trousers' fly underneath his robes. The panic and horror on her face amused and annoyed him at the same time.

Just then, Regulus chose to rescue her. He poked his head into Hermione's open office, slightly surprised to find his brother tugging at his trousers and Hermione's responding look of horror. "If you want to show off the Black family jewels, do it on your own time. The Ministry isn't paying Hermione to be scarred for life, and I don't want to have to explain it to the minister why we need another employee sent for mental healing." He turned to address Hermione. "If you could come into my office after you finish this discussion, I'd appreciate it. The Department of International Magical Cooperation is hounding me about lending you to the Americans again. I'm hoping if you help me devise a reply that cleverly says, 'Bugger off,' they'll finally get it." He turned to leave, paused, and shot his brother a dirty grin. "I noticed the runic work on the Apparation point, Floo entries, and the lift. Nice work, Granger." He pretended not to chuckle at the pithy, dirty words his brother had for him.

"What do you say about helping me with my hair, Granger?" Sirius asked, sitting back into his conjured chair and propping his feet up on her desk.

Hermione glared at the dragon hide boots that were resting on the parchment designs for a project she was working on. "Shouldn't you be more concerned with helping your poor dog's fur?" she asked. She smacked at his boots, but he didn't move.

"My dog doesn't work in the Ministry of Magic. A little pink fur never hurt the poor creature. I, on the other hand, don't feel like having to answer questions on how a witch half my age bested me at my own game. It's bad enough that my mates will never let me live it down, let alone their kids," he replied.

She grinned. "Ran into Mr. Potter, then, did you? I was hoping you'd have to come across him." She picked up a piece of parchment resting on a nearby end table and ripped it cleanly in two. It glowed bright orange for a second before the colour faded away. "The runes that were keeping you from using public transportation into the Ministry, the lifts, or getting into your office are now down. Your hair, on the other hand, will either naturally turn to its black colour within five washings, or you can shave it off and it'll grow back normally. I directly tampered with the ingredients in the flea potion, so I can't rip a piece of paper and have things turn back to normal."

"So I'm stuck with this hair until I get a shower?" he whined.

"You can always shave it off. There are multiple Hair Regeneration charms and potions."

He grumbled a bit to himself. "I just got my hair where I like it. I don't want to have to retrain it to give off this 'thoroughly shagged' look. You play a dirty game, Granger."

She gave him a toothy grin. "When I do retribution, I do it well. However, I now have work to complete, so if you could remove your feet from my desk, I'd appreciate it."

Sirius lazily stretched and stood. He went to leave the office and waited for her attention to be elsewhere. Grinning, he covertly pulled his wand from his sleeve and cast a charm at her before walking away. He didn't look back to see its result.

Terry Boot passed a triumphant-looking, pink-headed Sirius Black as he made his way to Hermione's office. Anthony Goldstein had been spreading rumours that the two were involved in some sort of petty prank war and news had gotten around about Black's hair. He wanted to know what the older man had done to his friend to deserve Hermione's attention.

"May I come in?" he asked, poking his head into Hermione's office.

"Oh! Hey Terry! Come on in. I was about to go see Regulus, but he can wait a second. I haven't talked to you since the picnic. How's Susan?" The witch behind the desk sounded like Hermione. She dressed like Hermione. Her skin and eyes were even the same colour as Hermione's. But her hair...

"What in Nimue's knickers happened to your hair?"

"My hair?" Her hands flew to her head and felt around for the wild mess that was normally there. They met perfectly coifed corkscrew curls instead.

"Oh gods!" she wailed, hastily throwing open her desk drawers. She frantically shifted through the contents, pulling out books and papers, broken knickknacks, and the miscellaneous things that could end up shoved in a space with an Extending Charm cast upon it. Towards the bottom of the mess, she found the hand mirror she kept 'just in case' and gazed about her head.

Andromache Black, albeit with darker skin and eyes, and lighter hair, stared back at her.

She bit back a hurried scream and fumbled around for her wand in panic. "_Finite Incantatem!_" she cried, poking her wand at her skull. Nothing happened. "_Finite Incantatem! Finite_-bloody hell-stop screwing around! Go away!" she yelled at her hair. She threw the mirror back down on her desk and looked up to Terry with barely veiled panic. With her free hand, she ripped at the corkscrew curls, trying to pull them out of their shape. "I can't be seen like this!" she cried, jumping up from her desk. She grabbed several handfuls of parchment and shoved them into her briefcase when the curls merely bounced back into position. "If any of them see me like this, they'll know who I am and I'll be in even deeper trouble than I am now!"

Terry reached out and latched on to her as she went to bypass him. "Hermione. Calm down. So your hair is a little different," '_Incredibly different_,' he added to himself. Almost as if she weren't Hermione Granger anymore, "What's so wrong about it?"

"Ooh Merlin," she groaned. Her eyes were wide with panic. "Sirius did this. Before he came into my office, my hair was perfectly normal. Merlin, I hope he didn't stick around to see what the result was. I..." she trailed off and pulled herself out Terry's grasp. "I need to get home and disappear until this wears off. I can't be seen like this." She poked her head in the hallway and looked around to see if anybody was present. "Regulus-oh blast. Regulus. Terry!" she turned to him and fixed him with a pleading look. "Can you please pop your head into Regulus's office and let him know an emergency came up and I needed to go home immediately? I'll owl him if I need to be gone for an extended period of time. I just... I need to get home right now. Thanks! I owe you one!" and then she was gone.

_27.2_

"What did you do to her?" Sirius was used to his office door being slammed open, but he was not used to his normally calm and collected brother doing it. Regulus stood in the doorway, shaking in dark fury with his wand pointed at Sirius.

"What did I do to whom? You need to be a little more specific," Sirius asked. He was also used to being accused of doing things to people, but he couldn't think of whom he had wronged now.

"One of Hermione's friends went to visit her right after you left. He told me that she'd said you had cast a spell at her. She began to panic and ran out of the Ministry with a message that, if she were gone for an extended stay, she'd let me know. Hermione Granger never runs away from work and she's never gone for extended stays. Hermione Granger is the one who needs kicked out every day because she'll end up staying and working until midnight. What did you do to her?" His wand emitted furious sparks as he spoke.

Sirius was flabbergasted. "I didn't do anything to her. We were bantering about my hair. She told me that I needed to get my boots off her desk for a meeting with you," he stated in innocence. He scrunched his forehead in thought. "I... as I was leaving, I shot her with a Hair Control Charm. I figured if I had pink hair, she could make do without that bush on her head." He jumped from where Regulus flung a stinging hex. "All it would have done is curl her hair. I swear on Merlin's saggy y-fronts," he added, watching Regulus's wand warily

"Then you'd better go fix it," Regulus spat. "You go and crawl on your hands and knees until she forgives you, because she didn't even bother to tidy up her damn office before she left. Whatever you did, you really messed her up."

Sirius nodded. "I need her address. I'll Apparate and see what I can do."

_27.3_

Three showers later, Hermione towelled off her hair and gazed at her reflection in the mirror. Albeit dripping lazily, her hair seemed like it was back to its normal state. When she'd jumped out of the shower the first time, she'd been horrified to notice the curls were still there, already jumping back to their perfectly curly state. Now, they were just frizzing out and beginning to halo around her head.

There was a knock on her front door. Abandoning her towel, Hermione tossed a dressing gown over her body and curiously headed to the flat's entrance. It was the middle of the day, and most of the people she knew were at work. Who could be bothering her now?

She opened the door to a pensive, pink-haired Sirius Black. Her gut reaction was to slam it right back in his face, but his apprehensive demeanour stopped her. His eyes raced up and down her body, not in a sexual manner, but in an apprehensive way. "Are you alright?" he blurted out.

Hermione was taken aback. "I'm sorry?" she asked. Crookshanks, who had been sleeping in a cat bed by the door, began to twine curiously around her legs.

"Regulus came bursting into my office, demanding blood, and retribution, and my first-born child, and said I'd gone and scared you out of the country. He said I could either fix things or become a eunuch. Probably. Are you alright?"

Hermione, while familiar with fretful, nervous men, was not familiar with fretful, guilty-looking Blacks outside her flat door. She opened the door wider to allow him entrance. "I'm fine. The spell it... er... scared me a bit. Surprised me, really. I wasn't expecting it so might have overreacted slightly. Please, come in." Sirius followed her in. He curiously looked around the flat as she closed the door behind them.

"Surprised you?" he inquired, having approved of her living quarters. There were more books crowded into the room than anything else. Crookshanks left his pursuit of trying to trip her by twining around her legs to inspect his instead.

Hermione's face tinged pink at his words. "I don't react well to surprises. Or maybe you missed Regulus's chance to brag about the time I almost blew up the department." Sirius chuckled, tinged with relief. He wasn't used to worrying about his prank victims.

For the first time since he arrived, he took in her dripping state with masculine approval. It took several moments for Hermione to also notice that she was in her flat with and unfamiliar male, and was only wearing a dressing gown, which caused her to blush even harder. She moved to pull the gown closer together.

"Since you aren't dead or dying, why don't you get dressed and come with me to lunch," he proposed. She looked surprised at the offer. Sirius had to admit that even he was feeling a little taken back at his suggestion.

"I... uh..." she began, trying to find an excuse to deny him.

He grinned his lazy grin and leaned in. "I'm sorry. That came out as if I were giving you an option other than going out to lunch with me. Should I rephrase the statement?" He tugged on a wet strand of her hair.

"Do I have much of a choice?" she asked with a frown.

"Well, you can go to lunch in your dressing gown, or you can bother to get dressed, but I'm not really complaining if you go as is," he stated with a lascivious grin.

Hermione slapped at the hand tugging on one of her curls. "Give me ten minutes. Go wait in the living room." She turned away. "If you break anything, I'll make sure your pink hair lasts longer than a few washings." 

_28. An interlude in the canteen_

If she didn't get some free time to herself, and soon, Hermione was going to explode. In between office meetings, the time she spent with Sirius, which had surprisingly increased in the past couple of months, and working alongside other departments to help with spell creation, Hermione hadn't had time for her own projects-or thoughts-in what seemed like forever. Her mood definitely reflected the growing desire to be left alone. Why Regulus felt the need to kick her out of her office and force her to eat in the Ministry mess hall, then, she didn't know. He'd be lucky if there was enough of the eatery left over if she lost her temper.

"Hermione!"

She started at the sound of her name, nearly spilling her drink. She found herself counting to ten so she wouldn't pull out her wand and mercilessly hex the person crying out for her. Her patience was starting wear thin and she found herself longing for dive-bombing canaries.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." She turned slowly and was surprised to see Harry grinning down on her. "I never see you here in the mess hall, so I wasn't expecting you to pop out of the woodwork like that. Are you meeting up with somebody else, or would you like to have lunch with me and my mates?"

She was so dumbfounded at being invited to do anything with her previous friend that she could only nod in response. Harry led her to a table off to the east end of the hall and motioned for her to sit down. She did so numbly, noting Neville Longbottom grinning at her from the left and Ronald Weasley sitting across from her, busily contemplating a plateful of hotdogs.

"Nice to see you again, Granger," Neville commented, clapping her on the shoulder. "I heard you've been doing well in the Department of Experimental Charms and Hexes. I figured that's why we don't see more of you around here. I didn't know you were friends with Harry."

"Please, call me 'Hermione,'" she informed him, picking up her fork and poking at her salad. "Harry and I were reacquainted at the Ministry picnic. I helped with babysitting Teddy Lupin for a bit."

Harry grinned. "I would have never guessed how good you are with kids," he admitted, beginning to eat his own lunch. "I was a little surprised at how well Teddy took to you. His hair was curly and brown for about a week."

Hermione laughed at this. "Poor kid. I wouldn't wish this mess on anybody," she said, referring to her own locks, "But I'm fond of it. It's more unique than regular curls."

"I heard you were responsible for Sirius's pink hair," Ron said with a mouthful before swallowing and gave her a sheepish grin. "I'm Ron Weasley, by the way. I think we had a few classes together back at Hogwarts."

Hermione smiled at him brightly. "I remember you. Do you have any idea how hard I cheered when Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup in our fifth year? It wiped that smirk right off of Malfoy's face when he realised 'Weasley is Our King' had backfired on him."

Ron let out a merry chuckle. "It's one of my favourite Hogwarts memories. The look of horror on Malfoy's face when Harry grabbed the snitch from right under his nose."

Neville laughed. "Harry always got the snitch before Malfoy could," he added. "It happened too often for it to be your favourite memory."

The conversation turned into amicable bickering about their favourite Hogwarts memories, and a sense of normality fell over Hermione. It was as they were talking about infamous potions disasters, several of which had been Neville's fault, when the conversation turned into a branch of thought that Hermione was startled to hear brought up. "Sorry. I forgot I'd meant to ask, but... how did you start a prank war with Sirius Black?" Ron questioned.

Hermione blushed and explained to them how the situation had begun. When she reached the part about tampering with his dog's flea potion, thus turning Sirius's hair pink, the three boys roared with laughter. Hermione grinned, feeling very accomplished with her prank choice.

"I hear you've been spending a lot of time with him lately," Harry said when the laughter finally died down. "It seems like you two have been getting along alright, aside from the pranks."

"Are you and Sirius dating?" Neville asked.

"No," she responded, the same time Harry commented, "Yeah."

They both shot each other an identical look of surprise. "Who told you Sirius and I were dating?" Hermione asked, slightly affronted.

"I assumed as much from what I've heard. Sirius and my dad are best friends, so he's around a lot. He won't shut up about you," Harry replied.

"Merlin, Potter," an unwelcome voice sneered from behind them, interrupting the conversation. Hermione closed her eyes and let out a huff. Only Draco Malfoy could ruin an otherwise perfect lunch. "I wouldn't have put it past _you_ to befriend a Mudblood, but to think she may stand a chance against the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black? Centuries of Black ancestors are turning over in their graves at the thought of a Black heir with a Muggle."

Hermione turned her head to glare at Draco Malfoy. Much like his father, he'd begun 'training' as a Ministry bureaucrat not long after graduation. Hermione was lucky that she didn't have to run into him often because, when she did, the fights never went well. Even in a different timeline, Draco Malfoy was one of the few individuals who could drive her to using violence. He currently stood off to the side of their group, haughtily staring down his nose at them. He had some nerve, cornering three Gryffindors, four if she included herself. The result would probably not be pretty.

Harry had to hold down Ron, whose face was turning a blotchy red over the term 'Mudblood.' Hermione shot him a quick, pointed look, and shook her head. She could fight her own battles. She turned around in her seat so she could face Malfoy. "Considering this 'Muggle's' NEWT scores far outranked the school's majority, including the average score in Slytherin, I think it's safe to say I'm more of a witch that most of the girls we went to school with. How many NEWTs did Parkinson get again?" she asked innocently.

Malfoy sneered at her. "You're just an upstart bitch. Just because a _real_ witch actually worked for her grades when you were every teacher's underdog-pet, you think you're better than her?" he queried.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Funny, but I don't remember Parkinson doing much working off her back. Did she even know where the library was?"

Neville snickered at her side. Bright red splotches of anger burnt into Malfoy's cheeks. "Pure-bloods aren't the ones who have to whore their way into positions of standing; we're usually born with it, Weasley and Longbottom excluded. Tell me, do you enjoy spending time with imbeciles and blood traitors, Granger? I bet Weasley's rare moments of acumen are disheartening. In fact, I know of a spell that can reduce his intelligence to a toddler's. With the flick of a wand, it'll be like you're dealing with a three-year-old. I'll even tell you the incantation if you promise to use it on him."

Hermione wasn't sure what happened next. At the mention of the spell You-Know-Who had used on Ron in her past life, her body had gone instantly cold and then burning hot with rage. Time slowed down to a halt. She could feel her heart pumping blood through her veins, each pulse growing farther and farther apart. There was a moment of pure timelessness before reality sped up and came crashing down on her. Her heart sped up again, pumping like a roaring train.

The next thing she knew, she was very surprised to find herself straddling Draco Malfoy's torso with bruised knuckles, as he gazed up at her through a bloody nose and mouth. Until that moment, the sounds in the canteen had vanished and all she could hear was the roaring in her ears. Now, they all came rushing back in fury.

She viciously clawed at somebody's hand, fighting the attempts to pull her off Malfoy by raking her nails across exposed flesh. "If I ever hear mention of that spell ever again," Hermione began vehemently, not caring that her grasp on his throat was probably doing damage to his trachea, "if I hear news that that it had been cast, or referenced to, if whispers of it reach my, or some random Muggle suffers from similar symptoms," several more sets of hands reached in to pull her off. One managed to release her hold on Malfoy's neck, "I will hunt you down and make you very, very sorry you were ever conceived. I'm always looking for guinea pigs to try out the spells I've created that my boss doesn't know about. Nobody would ever know what happened to you. One day, Draco Malfoy would simply disappear... like magic."

Arms wrapped around her elbows, yanking her backwards and off Malfoy. Hermione fought back, trying to free herself from the grasp; she wasn't done taking out her anger on the vile ferret yet. Another body forced itself between her and Malfoy, drawing her to its chest and into a hug, but blocking the vision of her opponent. Once again ready to use physical force to claw off her captor's face, Hermione's eyes moved instinctively upwards as she fought her restraints. Sirius Black's concerned face gazed down upon her. Staring into his eyes, the reality of the situation came back full-force. Hermione had lost control and had physically attacked Malfoy out of fear and anger. Slowly, her face crumpled. She collapsed into a broken sob against Sirius's chest and clutched to his robes for dear life. She wondered if she'd ever completely get over the horrors of her previous existence.

_29. An interlude in a hurry_

The Alarm Charm had not gone off on her wand. She did not wake up to the screeching, aggravating blaring that normally forced her out of blissful oblivion every weekday. Today, it was Crookshanks who brought forth her consciousness, half an hour later than usual. His Majesty wanted to be fed, and he made his expectations exceedingly clear as he lapped at her chin.

Pushing her cat away, Hermione groggily turned to the clock on the wall. She took a moment to register the time and then sat up with a sudden start, sending her blankets flying. She bounded out of bed and ran into the bathroom, quickly gathering toiletries as she did so. She was running late. Very late. On the day of an important meeting. Today, she would officially destroy the Time-Turner prototype and all the notes she'd made on it. The Department of Mysteries was making a to-do out of it, turning it into a small ceremony. And she was running absolutely and utterly late.

Hermione scrambled around for the appropriate toiletries as she showered in record time. Robes were haphazardly tossed on and she didn't bother to look in a mirror. It would only cause more stress because she'd ultimately try to fix her hair. Instead, she offered a prayer to the heavens that not messing with her appearance would work out for the better and Apparated to the Ministry.

She dashed through the Atrium, shoving people to the side as she walked. She pushed past an unsuspecting Harry and James, both of whom were on their way towards the lift. Due to her hurry, she missed the look of utter surprise and astonishment on James's face. Instead, she continued to elbow her way through the throngs of Ministry workers until she acquired a spot on the lift. "Where to, Miss?" Jake, the lift operator, asked.

"Ninth level, please. I'm running late for a meeting and I think Sirius Black might murder me if I'm late for my own Destruction Ceremony." Because her morning had been so hectic, Hermione didn't stop to contemplate why Jake hadn't referred to her by her given name the way he had for the past two years. She was more concerned about the hell and teasing she'd get for being tardy.

The lift slowly descended to the ninth level. Hermione made a mad dash to the Department of Mysteries the second the doors opened and, reaching her destination, she breathed a sigh of relief. Regulus was already at the door leading into the department, but he was still waiting for his brother's arrival. They needed Sirius to lead them into the Department and to his office. Once they were there, the Ceremony would begin. She couldn't see Sirius anywhere, so Hermione figured she'd gotten there in time.

"I'm sorry I'm late," she told Regulus, approaching him with a sheepish smile. "For some reason, I forgot to put an Alarm Charm on my wand this morning. I didn't wake up until Crooks decided it was time for breakfast," she vented.

Regulus stared down at her with a confused look on his face. "I'm sorry?" he asked politely.

Hermione raised an eyebrow at him. He hadn't used that polite tone on her for years. "Crookshanks. My part-Kneazle cat? You've seen pictures of him in my office before. No doubt you've had to listen to Sirius go on about how he sheds."

Regulus's puzzlement grew before a look of dawning horror crossed his features. "Regulus?" she asked, taking a step back. "Are you alright? You look like you just swallowed a Snitch."

"I-_Hermione_?" he asked. His eyes were wide and his mouth was slightly gaping.

"Who else would I be?" she asked, confused.

There was a dash of silence before he responded. "My cousin," he replied, also taking a step back. "The one that's been missing for twenty-two years."

Hermione's hands flew up to her hair as her own look of horror dawned across her face. In her hurry to get ready this morning, she hadn't been paying attention to which shampoo she'd picked up. What were the odds of her picking up the shampoo containing the potion Padma had helped develop for the perfect Black Family hair? The same potion she hadn't poured out yet, because she kept procrastinating whenever the idea came to her? Why had she even kept it in the bathroom, tempting the possibility that she might accidentally pick up the bottle one morning and use it? How daft could she possibly be? Hermione reached up and tugged on a raven ringlet.

"I..." for the first time in her life, Hermione Granger was lost for words. She wasn't sure how much worse the day could get.

"Sorry I'm late, Regulus," a third voice called from behind. Sirius exited the lift, oblivious to his brother's exchange with Hermione. "I stopped to talk with James. He's squealing some garbage about our cousin Andro...mach..." Sirius's sentence trailed off as he took in Hermione's hair. "What the fuck is going on?"

Hermione cringed. That last statement hinted of red, hot anger, and she knew she deserved it. "Bollocks," she muttered. Now the day couldn't get any worse. 

_30. An interlude in Albus Dumbledore's office_

The tension in Dumbledore's office was so thick it could have contained Fiendfyre if its protective jam jar had shattered. Albus Dumbledore surveyed the scene in front of him from behind the safety of his desk, watching his three former students with calculating eyes. Seated in the centre of the three, in a conjured chair, Andromache-Black-nee-Hermione-Granger looked as if she were about to cave in on herself. She had pressed herself into the chair cushions as much as possible, and was fiddling with the hem on her robe's sleeve.

To Hermione's left, Regulus Black sat quietly, brooding mutely. The elderly professor watched as the younger Black brother kept glancing critically between Hermione's seat and the livid man pacing the room behind them.

Albus turned to contemplate the pacing person. To say Sirius Black did not look pleased was a severe understatement. Albus was aware of Sirius's rash and volatile temper, a temper that was released upon other people and objects when peaked. Dumbledore had a multitude of memories from the 1970s when he'd ended up in private discussions with Sirius for the destruction of school property; the Gryffindor common room, for example, had been decimated more times in the seven years Sirius Black and James Potter had attended school than any other seven-year period in history. Currently, Albus assumed that the only reason Sirius had refrained from exploding objects while on the warpath was out of respect for the elderly headmaster who had defeated the Dark Lord two decades ago. As flattering as this thought was, it was also sobering.

"I admit that, while I was beginning to fear my morning would be rather dull, I was not expecting three of my former students to burst into my office, demanding a meeting. May I question as to why you're here?" Albus asked serenely, breaking the silence.

"How much questioning do you need?" Sirius spat. He fought back the urge to kick over an end table. "I present to you my 'cousin,' Andromache Black. Better known as Hermione Granger. Who has _successfully_," he stated the adverb with a venom that made Hermione cringe, "created and used a Time-Turner to travel back twenty-two years into the past to play out her little fancies with other people's lives."

He paused in his tirade to shoot Hermione a look that Albus had only ever seen Sirius use on his schoolyard nemesis, Severus Snape. "Our curious Head Girl deserves full points for ability, but I'm afraid I need to dock some for malicious intent, darling."

"Sirius," Regulus warned. His hands were calmly resting on his chair's armrests, but Albus could see that his knuckles had turned white.

Sirius laughed scathingly at his brother. It was a hollow, empty sound that made Hermione want to push herself further into the chair's cushions. "Don't 'Sirius' me, Regulus. We've all been played, been had, by a girl who couldn't let curiosity rest."

He turned back to Hermione with a dark expression on his face. "Tell me, sweetheart. How long did you have that Time-Turner before you decided you'd tweak around in the past to 'Change things for the greater good,' I believe your words were?" He kicked at one of the walls, trying to fuel some anger through the action. He then turned his venom back on her, "Or was it your intent all along to skip back into the past and live out somebody else's life for a bit of fun?"

Albus turned his attention back on Hermione. "Miss Granger, are you Andromache Black?" he asked, keenly ignoring the additional accusations Sirius had uttered.

Her nod was barely perceptible.

"And you managed to travel to the past by creating a Time-Turner that would allow its wearer to travel back years in time, instead of hours."

There was another nod.

"I believe I understand why you felt a desire to travel to the past," Albus stated, watching her intently. "I seem to recall a letter I received shortly after Andromache Black's disappearance, regarding Lord Voldemort's destruction. However, I'm curious as to why there was a necessity to create a false personality and remain in the time period for six months."

"Please, don't let Sirius's accusations fall on deaf ears." The bitterness behind this statement surprised the elderly headmaster. For as discomforted as Hermione was acting, the acid in her voice was a stark contrast. She sat up slightly in her seat, enough so she could glare at Sirius. "In living as Andromache, I had every intention of changing the future for the greater good. By travelling to the past as Andromache Black, I had both the wealth and status to be accepted into society. I will admit that it was never my intention to remain in the past for so long, though."

"Why my family?" Regulus wanted to know. His voice was short and clipped.

"So she could live out her fancy of being a pure-blood princess. Curiosity killed the Kneazle. It's Ravenclaw's downfall," Sirius sneered. He continued his frenzied pacing.

The look Hermione shot him was full of loathing and disgust. The tone, the anger, and the venom he was directing at her... she had expected such a reaction from him if the "Kneazle" was ever let out of the bag. Actually hearing the anger and venom, though, and knowing that it was directed at her before she'd been given a chance to defend herself, was disheartening to say the least. It was painful, knowing that, just the previous day, he'd been flirting with her non-stop, aggravating her to the point of drawing her wand against him. Ever since the pink hair incident, their relationship had been amicable and friendly, taking away some of the sting and she'd felt the morning she'd woken up in this new reality. Now, he was treating her with outright scorn and contempt, and it hurt.

"I was able to work alongside your cousin, Andromeda, to create a persona that would allow me freedom of movement," she explained, answering Regulus's question. "In appearing as the long-lost cousin and heiress of a Squib outcast, I would receive a lot less conjecture from both halves of society-pure-blood and everybody else. It put me in a position where I could complete my mission without unnecessary accusations. It also helps that yours was a family where a long-lost heiress would not be questioned past how full her bank account was."

Sirius's self control snapped even further when he heard Andromeda's name dropped. He snarled and grabbed at her chair, ripping it around so he could face her. "You got Andromeda involved? You couldn't just keep your curiosity to yourself, but you also had to bring other people into the mix?"

She faced his snarling with a mocking tone, one she'd adopted for gently explaining common knowledge to daft people. "Yes, I involved Andromeda. Padma Patil, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Professor McGonagall also aided my project. In fact, Professor McGonagall was the one who gave me the idea to return to the past. However, you can ask every single one of those people and none will remember having helped me. I don't even think Mr. Shacklebolt knows who I am anymore. I'm the only one who remembers it all."

"Remembers what?" Sirius questioned testily. Hermione's cryptic dialogue was increasingly irking him.

Hermione snorted slightly, sat up straight in her chair, and gave her best 'Attentive Student' presentation. "Well, to start out, of everybody in this room I was the only one to survive the Second Great Wizarding War."

This stopped Sirius's pacing up short. She wanted to snicker maliciously when he almost tripped on the carpet underneath his feet.

"A _second_ Great Wizarding War?" Regulus queried as he contemplated Hermione's words.

"Not 'a' second Great Wizarding War." She turned away from Sirius and faced the Headmaster evenly. "_The_ Second Great Wizarding War." She paused for a moment, chewing on her lip in contemplation. "Actually, to be quite honest, Regulus didn't survive the First one, Sirius was murdered in a duel at the Department of Mysteries when the Second finally initiated, and your death was just before You-Know-Who took control of the Ministry of Magic."

"There are too many uncharacteristic gaps in that, Hermione," Regulus stated. He'd let go from his grip on the chair's armrests and now folded his arms across his chest in a slightly defensive gesture. "I'm sure I speak for all of us when I ask you to stop being coy and simply explain the situation."

"I'm not being coy," she said bluntly. Her voice was cold and to the point. "I was simply opting for tact. However, since you asked so nicely, I'll admit that I left out the part where Regulus joins the Death Eaters, due to the alienation from the one member of his family who would support his choice to join the Order of the Phoenix. This particular story ends with death by an Inferi attack when Regulus finally gathers the courage to deviate from You-Know-Who's orders. He does manage to collect one of the seven soul fragments that kept You-Know-Who alive, though."

She continued, now facing Sirius with her monologue. "There's another part of the story that involves a prophecy being made that leads You-Know-Who to target the Potters, an infant Harry Potter in particular. Harry is foretold as the 'Chosen One,' the only person who could defeat the Dark Lord. James has Sirius agree to be Secret Keeper, but at last minute, they decided to change the it to somebody else, somebody who turned out to be a Death Eater in disguise. James and Lily are killed, and Sirius is framed for their murder. He spends twelve years in Azkaban, then becomes the prison's first escapee. He dies due to complications of a duel in the Department of Mysteries' Death Room during Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts. His name isn't cleared until long after his death."

The room was silent in shock for a moment. Sirius was the first to break the silence. "Who was the spy?"

"It doesn't matter anymore, because the individual eventually redeems himself. He's also a completely different person in this reality. It won't do you any good to hate somebody who was a Death Eater in one past, but isn't now."

Her brown eyes were drawn to the Headmaster as she continued her story. "You, Sir, fall protecting the school. Death Eaters infiltrate Hogwarts." In quiet tones, she explained how he'd been poisoned by the Horcrux, and how the Death Eaters had been able to break into the school.

Dumbledore sighed, gazing at her with compassion. "I apologize, Miss Granger. It was never my intention to bring war into Hogwarts. I had always hoped that, while Hogwarts still housed students, it would be safe. Obviously, not only did my judgement pull you into the fighting, but other students as well."

She cracked a smile at him, grateful for his words. "If I was pulled into the fighting, it was through my own choices. In that life, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley were my best friends. I made a conscious choice to join the fighting, to help defend innocent people from Death Eaters. Harry never wanted us to get involved. He never wanted us to have to kill, or use Unforgivables. Neither did you. However, I was willing to sacrifice my future to defend the people I loved." She turned to Sirius and sent him another scathing glare. "For all you go on about a Ravenclaw's 'Curiosity killing the Kneazle,' I was sorted into Gryffindor twice before I ever became a Ravenclaw."

Albus spoke before another squabble broke out between her and Sirius. "I think," he suggested slowly, "That it might be easier for us all to understand the implications behind your story if you started at the beginning and worked your way through it. You're giving us bits and pieces of a whole and it's hard to grasp the full picture."

With no holds barred, she did just that. Starting with her first year at Hogwarts, Hermione told them a tale full of misery, blood and death. She spoke of the mental and physical anguish three teenagers had been forced to endure before they'd even bypassed puberty. Discussing the aftermath of the war was just as difficult. She described how, even with the Dark Lord's death, the fighting had continued until their society was in ruins. She described the funerals she'd attended of friends and mentors, until the ceremonies had stopped-not because of a lack of death, but because society was spread too thin to continue them. She described how strongly the economic depression had affected their world, further ripping apart their chances at rebuilding, and what living with Andromeda, Teddy, and Ron had been like. With laboured breath, she told them how the Muggles had discovered the wizarding world, and how they'd descended upon it with rage, connecting many of their miseries to the Second Great Wizarding War. Hermione talked until she felt emotionally drained and wrung out. Then, she began to list off the names of the dead without bar, focusing on both sides of the war.

When she was done, there was utter silence in the room.

Regulus was the first to break it. "Why?" he asked with a shaky voice. "Why were you the one to go back and change things?"

"Because somebody had to," she answered honestly. "I had already sacrificed so much to prove that I belonged in a world that didn't really want me. I was willing to sacrifice my memories and all of my past relationships if that meant I could create a world where Harry could live with his family and Teddy Lupin grew up to know his parents. One where Regulus Black got to prove his worth and where Sirius didn't spend fourteen years blaming himself for the death of his '_heterosexual life mate_.' What is one person's happiness compared to an entire civilization?"

"Did you really have to make yourself out to be a martyr?" Sirius quietly questioned.

"The funny thing about friendship is that death isn't very constructive to the relationship. At least this way, I can try to rebuild some of those lost memories. The other present time didn't really create much leeway for a future. I'd rather have them alive, even if they're not in my life, than dead, and just a distant memory."

"Why did you leave so suddenly, in the past?" Regulus asked, turning the questioning into a different direction.

Hermione fixed him with a wry grin. "My place was never in your generation. I needed to complete the tasks set for me, and then come back home. After a few months, I realised I was getting attached to the life and the... uh... people there," she managed to keep her focus on the carpet, the portraits, Professor Dumbledore's desk, and generally everywhere that Sirius wasn't within her line of vision, "and getting attached to them kept me from doing my job. To quote the Muggles, 'there were bigger fish to fry.' I did what I could and then I left."

"Were you in love with Ron Weasley?" Sirius's question caused her head to snap up in surprise. His face was blank again. Merlin, she hated that blank look.

"I thought I was," she admitted. "But the Ron Weasley I loved doesn't exist anymore."

_31. A second interlude in Regulus's office_

Regulus didn't bother looking more closely at the pink parchment in front of him.

"Explain," he demanded, feeling disappointed when Hermione refused to meet his eyes. She kept her faze firmly on the carpet as she spoke.

"I've made all of the forms in triplicate. I've already passed a copy on to your secretary, as well as to the Department of International Magical Cooperation, as per regulations. Their head of department was more than willing to accept my application, and the Minister of Magic has already planned my next project," she replied. Her voice was strangely monotonous, and it matched the current feeling of her life. The past week had been turned into one giant, beige blur. It was as if letting out all of her fears, anguishes, and remorse in Dumbledore's office had left her empty.

"I understand what the forms are," Regulus said evenly. Hermione wanted to wince, having recognized his tone of neutrality for what it really was, but she couldn't. "What I don't understand is why you suddenly decided to drop your work in the Deutsch to go to the States in an internship for such an extended period of time, especially considering that, after only two years of working here, your name is high on the list of those to succeed me when I retire." He peevishly hurled the files down on his desk.

"The United States Department of Magic has been pushing for me to travel to Washington D.C. since before I graduated. I feel it would be a wise career choice, and a chance to broaden my magical horizons; the US has a rich, melting pot culture that has been influenced society around the globe." Her explanation sounded oddly rehearsed, as if she'd practiced over and over until she got it right. "The Minister is thrilled with me taking an internship overseas. He's taken a personal interest in my career path and believes I can be Minister one day, if I continue this course of action."

"So it has nothing to do with running away and everything to do with ambition? How Slytherin of you," Regulus replied. Hermione started a bit, surprised to hear the slight sneer in his voice directed at her.

"We're not in school anymore. Those labels are useless," she shot back. Regulus was with the slight bit of heat in her voice.

"But you don't deny that you're running away?" he asked.

"It's not running away. It's emotional catharsis. I need some time away from Britain so I can work out what's going on in my head," she replied.

"And Sirius isn't involved at all?" he asked dryly.

Hermione flinched. She wasn't used to her boss taking a direct course of action and this particular question stung. Sirius's accusations had hurt, mostly because his questions had been in her mind for months before he'd voiced them. Had her return to the past been purely selfless? Did she really have everyone's intentions pure at heart? Or had her return been based on selfish reasons, on her wanting to play the pure-blood bitch mixed with the desire to change the unhappy life that had been created for her? Was she really a martyr?

The fact that Sirius had been avoiding her like the plague didn't help. Normally, for the past three or so months, he'd constantly sought her out in the hallways, or made a point of contacting her several times a day, usually for trivial matters, or did something to aggravate her on a daily basis. He was constantly underfoot, to the point where Hermione questioned whether or not he actually got his own work done. Ever since the hair incident they'd gotten close, throwing random movie nights, taking extended lunch periods outside the ministry, and getting dragged along to various impromptu weekend field trips. Now, his avoidance had reached a point where Harry himself had sought her out to ask about his godfather's sudden moodiness. Hermione hadn't had any answers for him, something that almost made matters seem worse.

"Why would Sirius be involved?" she asked Regulus. "Do I look like the type of person to let somebody else decide her career choice?" she retorted. This situation had a lot less to do with the possible romantic ties that had been severed, and a lot more to do with the painful accusations Sirius had made in Dumbledore's office.

She didn't look up from where she was staring at the carpet. Hermione wasn't going to debate her motives with Regulus and she didn't want to see the look of disapproval on his face anymore. It was a look that made her disgusted with herself, just because she was feeling the same disapproval towards herself.

_32. An interlude in Grimuald Place's drawing room_

Sirius sulkily lied across the drawing room couch, bouncing a Muggle SuperBall against a wall. Regulus was familiar with his brother's moods, but two weeks of soggy, sulking Sirius Black was grating on his nerves. The SuperBall didn't help.

"She's going to the States," Regulus said from the doorway of the room.

Sirius ignored him and continued to bounce the ball, catching it every time it returned.

"She handed in her resignation from the Deutsch a week and a half ago. The Minister has taken a special interest in her career and has decided she'll spend the next few years working in America, in their Bureau of Magical Affairs in Washington DC."

The ball, Regulus decided, was going to "accidentally disappear" within the next twenty-four hours. He turned to leave. "Her international Portkey departs from the Department of Magical Transportation on Monday at three-fifteen in the morning. She'll be gone for three years, or even longer, depending on whether she's as successful in their spell development as she is here or not." He walked away, leaving his brother to brood, calling out behind him, "Thought you might want to know." 

_33. Another interlude in the Three Broomsticks_

James stared at Sirius, flabbergasted. It wasn't often that he faced Sirius with that expression on his face. "She did what?"

James had cornered him that night, demanding to know why his best mate had been so moody for the past few weeks, and the story had just spilled out. Now that he was finished telling James what Hermione had done, Sirius faced him in an utterly miserable mood.

"Changed everything. Gave just about everybody I know a chance to live, loosing everything of value to her in the process. She said it was easier to rebuild it all than living in a world where everything was gone, when everybody was dead."

"And you said what?"

"Before or after I accused her of playing with the our lives out of fancy?" Sirius toyed with the last remaining drops in his tumbler, swirling them around. "Or how about when I accused her of wanting to knock elbows with pure-bloods by pretending to be one?" He tipped the glass over, watching the drops spill onto the table. He reached for the half-empty bottle of firewhisky and poured himself another shot. "I was also pretty close to hexing her, for getting other people involved with her 'fancies,' and I used her words against her."

"I take it you said all this before you let her explain herself?"

Sirius threw back another shot of firewhisky in response. He barely felt the burning any more.

James sighed. "I think we're all pretty familiar with your temper. That's no excuse, but I'm just saying. What then?"

Sirius shrugged. "She finished her story. She apologized for the inconvenience. She left. I proceeded to get blazingly pissed two hours before noon."

"You haven't said anything to her?" James asked. Sirius shook his head. "Have you even tried speaking to her?" He felt like rubbing the bridge of his nose in annoyance. As familiar as Sirius was with the female anatomy, he had a lot of work to do on comprehending the psyche.

Sirius let out an empty laugh. "I just accused her of being an upstart _Mudblood._" He sneered the term he loathed with a burning passion. "How does one respond, when he actually realises the Upstart had intentions more noble than he could possibly imagine?" He snorted, regretting the choice of action as firewhisky cleared out his nasal passages. "Of course I haven't tried speaking to her. Chances are she doesn't even want to hear the words 'Sirius' or 'Black' ever again. Regulus says she's even taking a Portkey to the States tomorrow, and will be gone for three years. I pissed her off so badly she doesn't even want to stay in Britain."

James had twenty-one years of marriage as experience in dealing with women. He found himself using it on Sirius, who had an entire lifetime of swinging bachelorhood as his experience. "You like this girl." This wasn't a question. It was a statement.

"She saved my life. She saved your life. In fact, I think she saved the lives of everybody in this sodding pub, let alone the majority of the wizarding world. How could I not like her?"

"There's more to it than that. I also wasn't looking for justification when I said you like her." James put down his tumbler and pulled the bottle of Ogden's out of Sirius's reach. "When we were at Hogwarts, I knew you were impressed with the one girl who stood up to you. I was the same way with Lily." Sirius shrugged but let James continue. "And then, she started to do little bits of good here and there. It absolutely rankled you that she would help first years try and prank us back, or that she would help Pete with his Potions assignments, even though there was no gain from it. Then, for what I think had to be the first time ever, you began to respect a girl for more than her _assets_." He made a crude gesture that made Sirius snicker. "We all noticed how you got quiet and contemplative, but not in your silent, sulky way, over her. And you fell into silent brooding for weeks when she disappeared."

Sirius scowled at James's recollection of his mood swings. "Enter Hermione Granger in your life, twenty-two years later. She approached you the exact same way your cousin had. Once again, you begin to appreciate somebody for more than their assets. You again become more quiet and contemplative, and actually look forward to having a girl outsmart you and turn your fur pink, or replace coffee creamer with itching powder. If I'd done that, you would've hexed me into the next century."

Sirius cracked a grin at that. "I would've hexed you into the next century for a lot less, but I understand where you're headed with this," he said.

"This particular 'appreciating a woman for more than her assets' approach has only happened to you twice in your life, and both times occurred because of the same person. I have a question for you," James stated.

"What?"

"Why-the-bloody-hell are you so willing to let this good thing run away? And you called her a martyr! Grow a pair and fight for what you want, man!" 

_34. An interlude in the Portkey Office_

Hermione was used to early mornings, but she was not used to really early mornings. She'd had two hours of fitful sleep until her bloody wand set off the Alarm Charm. She'd be leaving for the States today, to start on a new internship involving international cooperation and other idealistic, warm, and fuzzy thoughts. The way she saw it, it was the Americans' way of 'brain-draining' the rest of the world. The fact that the Minister of Magic had been placing an awful lot of attention on her the past week had not gone unnoticed, either. Obviously, he was afraid that the Americans would "steal" Britain's best and brightest out from underneath their noses. It would take only a year in the States, showcasing the amount of success she'd had in the Deutsch, before she'd be receiving offers of United States citizenship.

She didn't consider this thought as bragging so much as realistic thinking, and from the way Regulus had been treating her lately, it was clear that he thought along the same lines.

Hermione had spent the weekend packing up her belongings. Crookshanks had been lovingly left with her parents the Friday before, at her mother's request. Crookshanks was growing old and he hated travel, her mother had said, and it was bad enough that she was losing her daughter for a year, let alone losing such a loving cat. In the end, her mother's stubbornness had won out and Hermione had wished her loving familiar good-bye. Giving him up that day had somehow opened her eyes to the fact that she was actually going away. She'd worked so hard to fix things and now she was leaving it all behind.

Regulus's accusations still rang in her head. 'So it has nothing to do with running away and everything to do with ambition? And Sirius isn't involved at all?' Those two questions kept circling her head, making her dizzy. Even if she'd openly denied those claims in Regulus's office, she knew better than to delude herself.

Sirius might have a bit to do with her running away. Maybe just the slightest, most miniscule amount. Hermione's brain wanted to claim that his accusations of her selfishness in Dumbledore's office were what burned the most, but her heart wouldn't leave it at that. Against all reason, she realised that all the time she'd spent with the man, both getting along and fighting like crazy, had created this... something in her heart. Something that fluttered whenever a good fight was brewing, or whenever that indescribable look of contemplation came across his face. The same fluttery feeling she'd gotten that night in the Room of Requirement when he'd actually approached her as a boy would a girl, not Sirius Black and Andromache or Sirius Black and Hermione. That innocent, fluttery feeling had been growing substantially with the more time she spent with the man... and then had been squashed to a fine powder under the force of his absolute disdain in Dumbledore's office.

She hadn't felt like that since she'd caught Ron snogging Lavender for the first time during sixth year. Her pride had receded to lick its wounds. To make matters worse, Sirius had completely fallen off the face of the earth since. That rankled her pride even more. His disregard may have accounted for one of the larger, multiple reasons why she was 'running away' from her problems here, to start with clean slate somewhere else.

She stepped out of the lift and onto the sixth level, mentally waving it goodbye, and walked the lonely way to the Portkey Office. The rest of her goodbyes had been said previously. She had asked that nobody appear for her departure. They'd only serve to make it more difficult for her to leave the country. She was leaving with her own guilt weighing her down, and did not need others to add to it.

Hermione opened the office and let herself in. The secretary wearily waved her forward and pointed out the office for international Portkeys. Hermione's feet did all the work while she let her brain wander. Her guilt at running away, as well as Sirius's echoing accusations, served as a wonderful tempest to keep her from chickening out. In fact, she was so lost in her own mind that she didn't notice the second pair of footsteps following her until she stopped walking and someone slammed into her.

Hermione would have fallen to the floor if a pair of strong arms hadn't wrapped around her waist to catch her. She was pulled back against a hard chest and a head bent down to rest its chin upon her head. "Please, don't go," a familiar voice rumbled.

"I've got to go," she replied, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. "There's no place for me here anymore and I can't stay knowing that."

The arms tightened around her. "Please, don't go," was repeated.

"I can't keep living here, Sirius, seeing the people that were once part of my life, and knowing that I don't exist to them now. I can't keep questioning whether if I went back in time to help those people, or if I went back to help myself."

"Please, don't go," he whispered. The chin left the crown of her head and a face buried itself in her neck, right where it met her right shoulder.

The arms around her waist had made her nervous enough. When she felt his caress against her neck, all rationality was thrown out the window and she began to babble, the thoughts pouring out an attempt to hide her edginess. "I also can't keep hating myself for wondering which timeline is better, which goes to show how horrible a person I am, because I begin to prefer the other reality, because I at least had memories of my relationships to keep me going. Then, I chastise myself because I know things are better here, because people are living and happy, but this feeling of self-pity won't go away and I keep hating and loathing myself for having it."

"Please, don't go." A pair of lips lightly met her neck. She was grateful for the strong arms keeping her up.

"I can't stay around, knowing how much people would hate me for messing with their futures." Whether it was because of the lips on her neck, or the feelings behind what she'd said, or maybe a combination of the two, her voice shook. She could feel the tears building up.

He growled into her neck in response, making her body break out in shivers. "You _gave_ those people a future. How could they hate you for that? Please, Hermione, don't go." The lips moved up to nibble on her earlobe, and her concentration wavered dangerously.

A tear trickled down her cheek and she was grateful had her back towards him. She didn't want him to see her break down like this. "I can't live knowing how much you hate me for messing with your life the way I did." She hated herself for how quickly the tears came when she admitted this, but hated herself more for the weak, little voice it had come out in.

The lips on her ear immediately stopped their teasing. Hermione found herself whirled around and she clutched at the robes underneath her fingers to keep from falling. Sirius Black's intense eyes met her own. "You gave me a life. You kept me from rotting away in Azkaban. You gave me back my brother. You made sure my best friends would still be there for me, and you kept them from dying and rotting, too. You ensured their happiness, at the sake of your own. How could I ever hate you?" He reached up and wiped away the trail of tears on her cheeks. His voice sounded incredulous. "And...er... please don't go," he added as an afterthought, cracking a sheepish grin.

"But in Professor Dumbledore's office-" she protested. He silenced her with a single look.

"In Dumbledore's office, I behaved like a prat. You know how big of a jerk I can be. You were one of the first women to ever prove how much of one I am. You were also one of the only women to stand up to me, to challenge me, to prove how I could be wrong. To make me laugh out of pure simplicity, the way we did in the Room of Requirement. To get away with dying my fur pink and switching my coffee creamers for Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes products on a daily basis. You're one of the only people I try to prank, when it has nothing to do with malicious intent. As far as Lily is concerned, you're the only person to choke me into submission in my own game. Please don't go. Please, don't leave me. Not when I've just found you again."

"Why me? Why do you care so much?" she asked, her voice only a whisper.

"Let me tell you a story. There's this really brave girl I met. We haven't always gotten along. I don't think she'll ever forgive me for silencing her in my brother's office, just like I'm sure Ministry workers through the ages will be telling stories about Sirius Black's infamous pink hair." Hermione snorted weakly and he lazily smirked back as he continued. "One day, I was being a big wanker, just spouting out shite without thinking of what I was saying, and just generally being myself, but when I pulled my... how was it said? 'My head' from 'my bum,'? We're going to have to work on your swearing, by the way. Well, when I pulled it out, I realised how brave, noble, and absolutely brilliant this girl was." He grinned sheepishly at the look she shot him. "Okay, I hadn't _just_ realised it, because I knew it before, but it only reiterated it, right? Well, this bird sacrificed her life for me, so I could have one. And I had a bit of an inkling that she might just fancy me a bit, too. I figured that, if that isn't a good enough reason to try and make it work between us, this bird and I, then I don't know what is. If I'm the reason she's running away from her current life, I just want her to know that I shouldn't be. The reason, that is."

Hermione thought the fluttery feeling in her heart had been previously squashed. Now, it came back with a vengeance. She could feel it in her toes, her fingers-her entire body tingled with it. "Aren't you going to ask me to please not go?" she asked.

Sirius leaned in and his lips ghosted just above hers. "Please, don't go," he whispered.

"You make a convincing argument, Sirius Black. I'll have to let this bird of yours know." She tentatively pressed her lips to his and moved her arms up to wrap around his neck. For the first time since she'd returned, she didn't regret a thing.

_35. An interlude with a wedding_

The bride and groom sat at the front table, happy grins tattooed on their faces. She was beautiful, practically glowing, with her chestnut locks pinned perfectly to her head and adorned with white orchids. Her dress was white silk, bejewelled with pearls, and cut in the empire-waist style to cover up the slight bulge in her stomach that wasn't due for another five months. She exuded a happiness that made onlookers smile. The groom, handsome in his formal black dress robes with an orchid pinned to his lapel, had eyes only for the beauty sitting next to him. He had done a lot of growing up since his years at Hogwarts, and finally approached the woman next to him as a man, a lover, and an eventual father. For the two, no others mattered in the world. Currently, a cry for a speech was going out and it seemed like the Weasley twins were more than willing to answer it.

Away from the happy bride and groom and seated at the opposite end of the garden, Hermione watched the other guests' joyful faces. Her eyes paused to linger on Lavender's hair for a little too long and she half-heartedly glared at the perfect up-do. Sirius followed her gaze and chuckled under his breath "I much prefer your hair all over the place. If you ever tried pinning an orchid to it like that, I bet it'd devour the flower before you'd even set it in place. Then, we'd have to listen to you grumble all night about what a nightmare it'd be to get all the petals out."

Hermione turned her glare to him, but it was even less half-hearted than the one she'd given Lavender's up-do. "You could probably pin a Blast-Ended Skrewt to my hair and it'd be devoured. You'd be finding bits of exoskeleton on the pillows for weeks. Then, I'd have to listen to you moan and complain about how it was starting to affect your hair."

"Touché," Sirius commented with a grin. He stroked her wrist with his thumb from where the two hands were clasped.

"They look happy," Hermione eventually commented. Ron was engaged in a champagne battle with the twins, eagerly sending discarded corks flying at the two as they aimed to continue telling their anecdotes about all the interesting places and positions they'd caught the bride and groom in. Many of the situations involved broomsheds and cupboards, although one or two involved the Quidditch Pitch and the Astronomy Tower. Hermione had not wanted to hear, let alone mentally picture, any of it. She did have to chuckle, though, as the Weasley matriarch entered the war and quickly ended it with a jet of water directed at her twin sons. Leave it to Molly Weasley to keep her youngest son's wedding from being ruined.

Hermione's eyes drifted back to the front table where Harry's head was bent near Ginny's.

She smiled. Youngest son's wedding, but not her youngest _child's_ wedding. Hermione knew that the second happy couple was waiting until after Ron's wedding to announce their recent engagement. Unable to keep it to himself, Harry had confided it to her right after he had proposed, admitting with a brilliant grin, that his knees had been knocking so much that he'd been forced to kneel on the ground. The fact that Harry had told her and no one else spoke greatly of the fast, tight friendship that had brought them together over the past year. Ron, although busy planning a wedding, had been included on the friendship, and she was busy rebuilding what she'd had in another life.

All of this was thanks to Sirius. Sirius had been the one to reintroduce her to the Weasleys. Molly had taken an instant liking to her, and Arthur had begun quizzing her about battery properties right away. It was thanks to Sirius that Hermione now babysat Teddy on a regular basis, and that she actively participated in Marauders-vs-Weasleys prank wars, although she had yet to choose a side; Sirius was proud to note that Hermione worked against both parties, and only for herself. So far, the tally was Marauders- three, Weasleys- three, Hermione- six. And that wasn't all. Ginny Weasley had gone to her and made her swear to be her Bridesmaid. Sirius had helped her put her life back together.

"Are you okay with this?" Sirius asked, gazing up at the dais. Hermione followed his stare to watch the happy, laughing bride and the sheepish, red-faced groom as Molly led the twins out of the wedding at wand point.

"A part of me is always going to wonder what would have happened if we'd ended up together," she admitted, looking down to their clasped hands. "A part of me is always going to love, honour, and cherish Ronald Bilius Weasley. But there's this bloke, you see." She picked her brains for the style Sirius had used in the Portkey Office. "He's a bit of a jerk, and old enough to be my dad. However, he was willing to try and make it work between us, even though we fight like cat and dog-no pun intended-and he can be a great prat sometimes. He was willing to put all the complications aside and try to make it work between us when I was ready to run away from my problems. He helped put my life back together. He's seen me at my best, and at my worst, and he's stuck by my side. I find the more that I'm with him, the more I love him and the less I love Ron."

Her eyes drifted up to meet his serious grey ones. She couldn't decipher that damn look in them, but she could guess what it would lead up to. He tilted his head closer to hers, and she pulled away from him. He gazed down at her with a pitiful, mock-hurt expression and she responded with an innocent smile. "The only problem is, I don't know how to approach the topic with him. As his brother, do you have any input about how I might best tell Regulus how I truly feel about him?" Sirius growled in response, which was her only warning before his lips slammed against hers.

Teasing Sirius always brought a positive outcome. Always.

The sounds of the wedding faded out until the only thing that was important was the feel of Sirius Black's lips upon her own. The future might be mysterious and terrifying, she thought, but at least she knew that, with Sirius by her side, it was going to be all right.


End file.
